The wedding would be a farce in any case. Would Lucifer wear a tuxedo? Would Evangeline wear a giant confection of a wedding dress? Would all the fallen do the Electric Slide and the Chicken Dance? I did not want to be a party to any of those things, although Beezle would want to videotape the whole thing and upload it to YouTube, I was sure.
I folded the paper and handed it back to the messenger, who did not take it.
“You can tell Grandpa that I respectfully decline,” I said.
He shook his head, a malicious glint in his eye. “Lord Lucifer expected this response and instructed me to tell you that attendance is not optional.”
“This wedding is only three days away. I’ve got pressing business here to attend to,” I said.
“Your presence is required. And so is yours,” he said to Nathaniel.
Nathaniel nodded, like he had expected this. Oh, no, no. I did not like that at all. Nathaniel’s presence in my life had only been tolerated by Lucifer since the Morningstar had discovered Nathaniel was Puck’s son. Prior to that, Nathaniel had been serving a debt to Lucifer for his part in Azazel’s rebellion. His life was forfeit to my great-grandfather, and if Lucifer chose, he could kill Nathaniel without a second of justification. I did not want Nathaniel under Lucifer’s eye for an extended period of time. The Morningstar might kill him in a fit of pique.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Nathaniel’s look stopped me. I could almost read his mind. Not now, get rid of the messenger.
I folded the paper and put it in the pocket of my suit, smiling brightly. Zaniel appeared taken aback by my expression.
“Tell Lucifer we happily accept,” I said.
Zaniel schooled his expression back to neutral. I got the sense that he was disappointed, that he had hoped for more protest from me. That made me wonder why.
Was he looking for an opportunity to pick a fight with me? And if so, was that fight sanctioned or encouraged by Lucifer for some reason? Or was the messenger willing to go off the reservation in order to exact revenge for his mother’s death? This was why I hated dealing with the fallen. I usually ended up with a migraine.
“I will express your acceptance to Lord Lucifer,” Zaniel said, and turned away, his back stiff and straight.
Nathaniel and I watched him go. He went to the corner near Pearson and Michigan. A black limousine seemed to appear out of nowhere. Zaniel climbed in and the limo pulled into traffic on Michigan, heading south.
“Why didn’t he take a portal?” I asked.
“Perhaps he wished to do so in a more unobtrusive place,” Nathaniel said. “There are many potentially curious people in this area.”
“No,” I said, staring in the direction the car had gone. “That’s not it. Why not slip into an alley? He’s taking the car because he’s meeting with someone else.”
Nathaniel looked troubled. “Sokolov?”
I nodded. “He’s the only big player left here besides Alerian. And I can’t imagine Lucifer sending that boy to deal with Alerian.”
Nathaniel gave me a small smile. “That ‘boy’ is several thousand years older than you. Ariell’s affair with Lucifer long predates Lucifer’s original relationship with Evangeline.”
“It doesn’t matter how old he is,” I said. “For someone who’s been around for a while, he’s not very good at hiding his emotions. Alerian would eat him alive.”
“Perhaps that is what Lucifer wants. Perhaps he is going to meet Alerian.”
“Clearing the board of his less-favorite offspring to make room for the new one? It doesn’t seem likely. Lucifer is fanatical about anyone with the same blood as his. It seems more likely that Zaniel is going to meet Sokolov. If he’s going to meet Sokolov, I want to know why.”
“It would also be helpful to know whether he is meeting at Lucifer’s behest or another’s,” Nathaniel said.
“I can’t imagine what Lucifer would have to say to Sokolov,” I said. “But it seems like Zaniel is too much of a bit player to have the power or authority to go to the Agency on his own. There could only be one topic of conversation, anyway.”
“You,” Nathaniel said.
“Not that I think I’m the center of the universe or anything,” I said hastily.
“No, it is logical that any discussions with the Agency would involve you,” Nathaniel said. “Who could direct Lucifer’s son against you if not Lucifer himself?”
“Zaniel doesn’t seem to like me very much,” I said. “A smart person could play on that emotion easily.”
“Which smart person?”
“Take your pick,” I said. “I have too many enemies to try to narrow it down without more information. Too bad J.B. is away trying to be a good king. He might be able to get some extra information for me if he was actually in the office. It’s really bizarre that he’s not there. He spends more time sleeping at his desk chair than he does in his own bed.”
“At the very least he would be able to confirm our speculation that the messenger is going to the Agency.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We might as well head home and see if Jude and Samiel turned up any information on that shapeshifter.”
As I spoke I realized something was buzzing in my pocket. I pulled my cell phone out, surprised I’d even remembered to bring it. Then I reasoned I likely had not remembered, but that Daharan had known I would forget and put it in the pocket of the suit. The screen told me it was J.B.
“Hey,” I said. “I was just talking about you. I thought you didn’t think it was a good idea for us to talk while you were playing King of the Fae.”
“I’m not playing,” J.B. said. “Don’t you even say hello anymore? Your conversational skills are actually getting worse as you get older.”
“I can’t help it. I graduated from the Beezle school of interpersonal relationships. If I let you talk first, then I might have to suffer slings and arrows against my character.”
“I didn’t call to listen to you mangle Shakespeare,” he said.
“Is that from Shakespeare?” I asked. “I had no idea.”
“Not really,” he said. “Hence the mangling. I called because a messenger just showed up in my court. A messenger from Lucifer.”
“Let me guess. He gave you an invitation and ‘no’ was not an acceptable RSVP response,” I said.
“He gave me an invitation, but I wasn’t foolish enough to say no,” J.B. said. “I’m sure you were.”
I decided to ignore that comment because it annoyed me that I was so predictable.
“I wonder who else was invited,” I said.
“Everyone who’s ever come to Lucifer’s attention, I imagine.”
“Which would include those who’ve crossed him,” I said. “Why tempt fate by gathering your enemies in one place?”
“I’m sure he’s got something up his sleeve besides marrying Evangeline,” he said. “If I hear anything before Saturday, I’ll let you know.”
“Speaking of hearing things—have you got anyone you trust at the Agency that you can get in touch with?”
“Lizzie,” he said. Lizzie was his secretary. “And a couple of others. Why? Did you do something?”
“No,” I said. “Why does everyone always assume I’ve done something?”
“Your track record speaks for itself,” J.B. said. “Don’t make me start listing all the property you’ve destroyed.”
“Slings and arrows,” I muttered. “Anyway, I want to find out if the messenger who delivered the invite from Lucifer to me went to see Sokolov. And if he did, I’d love to know if he went there on his own or under somebody’s orders.”
“I’ll see if I can find out anything. See you in a few days.” He clicked off.
I looked at Nathaniel. “You heard all that, so there’s no need for a recap, right?”
Ever since Nathaniel had come into his legacy from Puck, he had super-werewolf-like hearing. He nodded in acknowledgment. “J.B. is certainly correct. Lucifer will doubtless invite all his allies and enemies to this e
vent.”
“I notice you didn’t say ‘friends,’” I said.
“In all his long history, the closest thing Lucifer ever had to a friend was Michael,” Nathaniel said.
“The archangel,” I said. “I wonder if he will be invited.”
By silent and mutual consent we walked to a semi-secluded spot where we could veil ourselves from human eyes and fly home.
“I do not think you should concern yourself excessively with Lucifer’s wedding,” Nathaniel said. “As you told the messenger, there are other, more pressing issues at hand, including Alerian’s anger with your defiance. I am concerned about the stress you are under in your condition.”
“I’m pregnant, Nathaniel. I’m not dying,” I said.
“You are a human on the verge of giving birth to a child of mixed and extremely powerful origins. I believe you are underestimating what changes this baby has wrought in your body. All I suggest is taking each problem as it presents itself and not worrying about what may happen on Saturday at this time.”
“But what if Lucifer is collecting all his known associates in one place so he can squash them in the most efficient manner possible?”
“You need not worry. If Lucifer were to do such a thing, your life would no doubt be spared,” he said.
I frowned at him, knowing he could see my face despite the veil. “You think it would make it okay if I lived even if everyone else died?”
“All I am attempting to say is that Lucifer would not permit harm to come to you.”
“Yeah, as long as I’m carrying the little prince,” I said. “After that I’ll be just as expendable as anyone else.”
“I know you do not wish to hear this, but if you had accepted Lucifer’s protection in the first place . . .”
“I’m not going to have this argument with you. Again.”
“Very well,” Nathaniel said, but I could tell he didn’t want to let it go.
Beezle had made the same argument once I’d discovered I was pregnant. Both of them seemed to think I would be safer with Lucifer. But I didn’t think it was a good idea to stay in such close quarters with the Prince of Darkness.
We landed on the lawn of the house. Everything seemed quiet and normal on the street. Our usual mail carrier was about half a block from my house, whistling as he jogged up porch steps to drop off catalogs and bills. I could hear the happy cries of kids released for recess at the school down the street.
For some reason, though, tension wound tight in my belly. Beside me Nathaniel appeared stiff and alert.
“Something’s coming,” I said.
He pushed me toward the house. “Get inside.”
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” I said. “No way.”
“Do not be stubborn for a change. For the love of the gods, let me protect you.”
I shook my head. “I’m not being stubborn. You hear those kids playing down the street? There’s no way I’m going to go inside and hide and let whatever’s coming take out its frustration on them. Enough innocents have died in this city.”
He did not argue anymore after that. We moved so that we were back-to-back, and waited.
There was still no sign of whatever was making us so tense. The mailman approached the house, working his way cheerfully down the block. I gave him a good hard stare, wondering whether he was the shapeshifter in disguise, but it didn’t do me any good. I didn’t have Beezle’s powers.
Beezle. Right. What was I thinking?
I pulled out my phone. Nathaniel gave me a startled look.
“You are making a phone call now?”
I dialed the house phone. After five rings the answering machine picked up. “Damn. Beezle must still be out with Samiel. But where’s Daharan? He’s usually at home all day.”
The mailman reached my front walk. He stopped whistling abruptly as he noticed us, tense-faced and ready for a fight.
“Um, good morning,” he said, sidling past us like whatever was wrong with us might be communicable.
“Morning,” I said through my teeth. The knot in my belly tightened. It was about to happen.
The mailman offered the rubber-banded bundle of envelopes to me. “Do you want to take it, or should I just leave it in the—”
I grabbed it from him and tossed the packet to the ground.
“—box,” he finished.
“Thanks,” I said. I wanted him to leave. I wanted him to leave immediately, before he was caught in the cross fire.
The mailman started to walk away, then stopped. “Are you by any chance the same Madeline Black who—”
“Alerian,” Nathaniel and I both said simultaneously.
The mailman appeared confused. “Alerian? I was going to ask about the vampires.”
“Get down!” I yelled just before the world seemed to explode.
There was no warning rumble, no indication that anything was going to happen. The grate flew off the sewer opening that was right in front of my house. The street seemed to cave in on itself before bursting outward, chunks of cement flying everywhere. I watched in horror as the pieces of the street crashed through the windows of people’s homes. And then the first tentacle emerged.
“What the hell is that?” the mailman screamed. “Just what in the hell is that?”
My sword was in my hand before I even considered what I was doing.
“Go in the house!” I shouted, hoping the mailman would have the sense to take cover in the foyer, but the man seemed paralyzed by fear.
I couldn’t blame him. I was feeling fairly paralyzed myself. A small, still-thinking part of my brain realized the gigantic tentacled sea creature rising from the rubble wasn’t Alerian himself but an avatar, a sending to do his dirty work.
Nathaniel and I moved toward the thing, defying my very natural instinct to move away from the monster that wanted to eat us.
And I was pretty sure that it did want to eat us, as it seemed primarily composed of teeth and tentacles. Its mouth was a giant maw of rotating layers of teeth that seemed to circle in its jaw like razor-sharp gears. I could not see any eyes, but its front two tentacles shot toward us with unerring accuracy.
I did the only natural thing in those circumstances. I slashed at the tentacle that reached for me. The tip of the arm sliced off under the blade of the sword. Black blood, like cephalopod ink, poured out of the wound, splashing over us, smelling of salt and the sea.
Nathaniel took a different tack. When the second tentacle curled toward him, he grabbed it. And set it on fire.
“Hey, that’s my M.O.,” I said.
“I have learned by observation,” Nathaniel said. “This is your way of effectively ending a conflict.”
Flames sped up the appendage, making the monster roar and slap the burning tentacle on the ground. Chunks of oversized sea-monster flesh flew everywhere. I heard a woman scream, but I couldn’t see her. All I could see was teeth and flailing squid arms.
The fire had panicked the creature temporarily, but I noticed the flames were going out. That limb was charred and useless, but the monster still had six more. And now it was angrier than ever.
“Apparently you haven’t been watching me closely enough,” I said. “When you set something on fire, you have to really set it on fire.”
“At your pleasure, then,” Nathaniel said, indicating that it was my move.
I looked at the thrashing, howling monster and realized pretty quickly that there wasn’t a lot of point messing around with the tentacles. I reached inside me, where the heart of the sun burned, where Lucifer’s magic called. Then I held my hands before me and let the fire fly.
It arrowed straight into the kraken’s open mouth. Such was my connection to my magic now that I felt the flame descend deep into the cavity of its body, burning flesh, causing the creature unimaginable agony. For just a moment I felt its confusion, too. Alerian had created this thing to cause pain, not to receive it. It didn’t understand the burning inside.
I deliberately drew
back from the spell, broke the connection. The magic was doing its work. The monster was dying. There was no need to feed the shadow inside me by relishing its death throes.
The fire spread from the inside out, smoke pouring from the creature’s mouth in thick black plumes. The stench was horrific. I covered my nose and took a few steps back, halting only when I bumped into the mailman. I’d half forgotten he was there.
He seemed unable to tear his gaze away from the spectacle of a giant octopus-squid-monster burning to death in the middle of a Chicago street.
I put my hand on his shoulder. He was so still I was afraid his mind was broken. “Hey, are you okay?”
My touch seemed to awaken him from his trance. He turned to look at me, blinking. “I guess you are that Madeline Black. The one with the vampires.”
“Yes, I am.” I felt I owed him the truth after what he’d just witnessed.
“This kind of thing happen around you a lot?” he asked. He seemed unnaturally calm.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
He walked away from me and toward his mail cart, which had fallen to one side when Alerian’s monster emerged from the street. The side of the cart was smeared with blackened squid flesh. He righted the cart, collected the spilled mail, and then looked at me.
“I’ll be asking for a different route,” he said.
I nodded. That was to be expected. It was what any sane person would do after spending five minutes in my company.
He nodded back and pushed the cart down the sidewalk toward the house next to mine, carefully maneuvering around the buckled cement and the large chunks of the street scattered everywhere.
The street was quiet. Every sensible individual had gone inside, where they were probably frantically trying to explain to the 911 dispatcher what had just happened.
Beezle landed on my shoulder, his claw covering his beak. “What have you done? I may never be able to eat fried calamari again after this.”
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“With Samiel, like you told me to,” Beezle said. “We were nearby and saw smoke so we figured it could only be you.”
Samiel appeared beside Nathaniel. He looked at the mess in the street and then at me. He appeared resigned.
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