Black Spring

by Christina Henry

  It is hard to walk quietly and cautiously when you’re pregnant. It’s even harder to walk quietly and cautiously when you’re about to give birth at any moment. Every time a contraction hit, I had to bite back a cry of pain. I concentrated on keeping my breath quiet. Just to make matters more complicated, Jack was shuffling like a confused zombie behind me, heedless of any noise he might make.

  I flattened myself against the wall beside the open doorway, and Jack copied me. I peeked around the frame into the room. It was empty, a storage room lined with pantry goods on shelves. There was another door opposite.

  “Were you paying attention when they brought you into the cell downstairs?” I whispered to Jack. “Do you remember what’s on the other side of that storage room?”

  He shook his head. “Some big guy rang my bell pretty good. I mostly remember the floor tile.”

  “And I wasn’t paying attention,” I said, my breath catching as another contraction hit. “Look, let’s just try to proceed as quietly as possible. We could come upon someone at any moment who could raise an alarm.”

  We edged into the storage room. It wasn’t very large, and while the walls were stacked high with food, the center of the space was completely empty. I felt exposed and on edge. Magic crackled across my fingers. If anyone came charging through that door, they were going to get blasted into oblivion.

  Then I heard the sounds of a struggle in the next room, and smelled the ozone burn of nightfire. My heart surged.

  “Nathaniel,” I said.

  He rounded the corner into the room, followed by Beezle, Samiel, Jude and J.B., and stopped short when he saw me. He looked slightly disappointed to find me there.

  “Will you never allow me to rescue you?” he said. His expression was just a little grumpy, like I’d stolen his thunder by getting out of the basement on my own. That face made me want to kiss him until he smiled again, and that was when I realized I loved him.

  I loved Nathaniel. It was a hell of a moment for a revelation, especially since another contraction hit at that very second. Freed from the restraint of silence, I cried out, my breath coming in panting bursts.

  Beezle’s eyes widened. “You’re in labor now? Can’t you ever make anything easy on yourself?”

  “Not a lot of choice, Beezle. Rescue away,” I said to Nathaniel. “This kid is going to pop out any second.”

  “And where did he come from?” Beezle asked, pointing at Jack. “And why does he look drunk?”

  “Apparently he found out about the wedding on the Internet and couldn’t resist the opportunity to have the crap beaten out of him by Lucifer and his flunkies,” I said.

  “You know, I’ve said a few times that you are too stupid to live,” Beezle said to Jack. “It’s nice to know that I was right.”

  “We must be away from here before Lucifer discovers your condition,” Nathaniel said, taking my hand and leading me into the next room. There were three guards on the floor.

  “Or before anyone discovers the string of unconscious bodies we left in our wake,” J.B. said. “Next time you get the bright idea to put yourself under Lucifer’s power, just slap yourself three times and then forget about it.”

  “He would have locked me up no matter what,” I said. “I was just trying to streamline the process. Besides, in a way it was better. If I had stood there arguing with Lucifer, my water would have broken right in front of him. And if that happened, then he would have whisked me away from the rest of you and put so much security on me you would have never found me.”

  “I would have found you,” Nathaniel said.

  There was no arrogance in his tone, just a statement of fact. He would find me no matter what. He would fight for me. I don’t know why it had taken me so long to see this and understand it, and finally, to value it. To value him. I wanted to tell him, but there wasn’t time now. There wasn’t time for anything except escape.

  Nathaniel expertly guided us through the warren of passages in this part of Lucifer’s mansion. We saw surprisingly few people, and those servants we did see were dispatched very quickly.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “There is a back entrance for servants,” Nathaniel said. “I lived here for a time. I should be able to find it again.”

  “And once we’re outside, then what?” Jude asked.

  “I am hoping to make a portal to transport us away,” Nathaniel said. “There are many magical restrictions on portals within Lucifer’s home, less so on the grounds. But it is imperative that we get outside before he discovers you have escaped. Once he finds out, he will lock down the entire area, and we will be unable to even walk to the edge of his property.”

  “Are you saying Lucifer could freeze us in place? Keep us from moving around?” Jack asked.

  “That is precisely what I am saying,” Nathaniel said. “This is his home, and a magical creature can always draw more power from the place where they are rooted.”

  “It helps that he’s one of the strongest immortals in the universe, too,” J.B. said.

  “Yes, that as well,” Nathaniel said.

  We were moving along pretty steadily when a contraction hit me so hard I had to stop in the middle of a hallway, gripping my stomach with both hands. I’d been vaguely aware of fluid running down my legs, and now there was a great gush of it. All of the men except Nathaniel turned their heads away in embarrassment. Beezle, who was perched on Samiel’s shoulder, had his claws over his eyes.

  “It’s just blood,” I said to them. “You don’t seem to have a problem with it when you’re hacking apart bad guys.”

  “I’m the mascot. I don’t hack apart bad guys,” Beezle said. “I’m delicate. I could be scarred by this.”

  “Says the gargoyle whose favorite movie is about a shark that eats a bunch of people,” I said.

  “A shark is one thing. This is Carrie,” Beezle said.

  I wasn’t embarrassed about the blood, but it was getting a lot more difficult to walk, never mind run.

  Nathaniel picked me up in his arms, cradling me like a child. I started to protest—his shirt, my weight—but he shook his head at me.

  “You weigh nothing to me,” he said. “And a shirt can be replaced. You cannot.”

  He began to run then. We both sensed that time was short, and our luck had held out for a surprising amount of time already.

  Just as we burst through the door that opened onto a long driveway, I felt an unearthly rumble under our feet. I was almost choked with the anger that I felt coming from Lucifer. Nathaniel felt it, too. His breath drew inward sharply.

  “He knows,” Nathaniel said.

  He handed me to J.B., who looked a little more uncomfortable holding me than Nathaniel had. I heard Nathaniel muttering the words to open a portal.

  “You can put me down,” I said to J.B., who appeared to be straining manfully. J.B. was part faerie, but his strength wasn’t anything close to that of a fallen angel’s. In fact, of everyone present, J.B. was the weakest—excepting the 100 percent human Jack, of course.

  “Nope, I’ve got you,” J.B. said.

  “You’re going to give yourself a hernia,” I said.

  “Never mind a hernia. He’s going to have a heart attack,” Beezle said.

  Samiel, who could probably lift a train off the ground using only his biceps, reached for me, and J.B. passed me over, conceding defeat. Beezle flew off Samiel’s shoulder.

  “I’d better not add to the strain,” Beezle said.

  “It sounds like you’re trying to insult me,” I said. “But really you’re just implying that you’re a fat gargoyle.”

  “I’m not fat,” Beezle said. “I’m adorably round.”

  Jude sniffed the air. “They’re coming for us. You’d better get that portal open, Nathaniel.”

  “It is too late,” Nathaniel snapped. His face was strained. “Lucifer is closing down the borders. We can’t get out this way.”

  “No,” I said, my heart pounding in panic.
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  I realized that it had never occurred to me that we might not escape, that we might not slip out of Lucifer’s net. The lot of us had faced long odds before. I had faced the longest odds of all in the Maze, and yet I’d always survived. To be so close and yet know that Lucifer would win, that Lucifer would take my child from me after everything I’d done to prevent that very thing . . . It was unacceptable.

  “Put me down, Samiel,” I said, and he obligingly placed my feet on the ground. I held on to his arm to steady myself and he walked me to Nathaniel’s side. I took Nathaniel’s hand. “We’re going to get out of here.”

  “How?” he said, and his jewel-bright eyes were bleak. “Lucifer has exerted his will. We cannot make a portal. The net is closing around us.”

  “I have the power of Lucifer inside me,” I said. “And you are Puck’s son. And Samiel, too, is a child of Lucifer’s line. You said that a creature draws strength from his roots, right? Well, as much as we all hate to admit it, we come from that root—the line of Lucifer and Puck and Alerian and Daharan. If he can draw on that power, then so can we.”

  His fingers gripped mine harder, like he was grasping on to the rope that kept him from falling into the pit.

  “To do this, to overcome Lucifer’s strength, you will have to touch the shadow inside you, and so will I. We cannot do this with half measures,” Nathaniel said.

  “I know,” I said, and the darkness opened up its eyes and smiled.

  15

  What should we do? Samiel signed. I’m not as powerful as you two. And I don’t use my magic as much. I mostly use my fists.

  There was another surge of emotion that was not mine, and I felt the sinking sensation that always accompanied Lucifer’s approach.

  “Just send as much power as you can through me,” I said.

  “No,” Nathaniel said. “I will be the conduit. The surge might harm the baby.”

  “Fine,” I said. “We don’t have time to argue.”

  As if to illustrate the point, several foot soldiers came streaming out the servants’ entrance and entered into a pitched battle with J.B. and Jude, who immediately transformed into a wolf. Jack staggered back away from the swinging swords, flying magic and gnashing teeth.

  “Stay out of the fray,” I ordered Jack as Nathaniel positioned himself in the center of Samiel and myself.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Jack said. Beezle landed on his shoulder. The blogger looked startled to see my gargoyle there.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Beezle said, squeezing Jack’s shoulder. His beak wrinkled in disgust. “What have you been doing, running a marathon? You smell like a sweaty gym sock.”

  “Madeline,” Nathaniel said, drawing my attention back to him and Samiel.

  I nodded, took a deep breath and opened up my power fully. It crashed out of me and into Nathaniel, the shadow seeking his. Our magic felt like a huge and miraculous thing as it mingled together, strong enough for us to overcome Lucifer’s spell, perhaps strong enough to overcome Lucifer himself. It was a dangerous feeling, and I realized the combining of power was going to my head. Nathaniel’s expression told me that he felt the same madness, the same pull of darkness.

  It was a struggle to focus on what we were trying to do, to look for the seam, the opening in Lucifer’s magic that had to be there. There had to be an escape hatch, a way for us to break through and break out. But it was hard to think of it with the shadow rising inside us.

  Suddenly there was a burst like sunlight, a pure and undiluted stream of magic, the reflection of Samiel’s heart. The light curled around the darkness and into it, lit up all those black places, sent the unnatural things scuttling away. His magic was so clear and beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes, and when I looked at Nathaniel I saw that he was crying, too.

  Samiel’s power illuminated ours. It didn’t smother it or try to crush the darkness. And as it did, I felt the light inside me, the light that had been blanketed by the shadow for so long. It was the heart of the sun, the heart of an angel, and it burned free and true for the first time since Gabriel had died.

  The shadow shrank away under that light, which burst forth from all three of us, shining like a star. Lucifer’s servants staggered back, away from the light, covering their eyes.

  And a portal opened in front of us. A wind whipped up before it, a sharp breeze that quickly turned into a gale, pulling us toward the opening.

  “Where does it go?” I shouted to Nathaniel. “I didn’t give it any kind of direction.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, but anywhere is better than here.”

  He tugged me to the portal. I turned back to make sure everyone else was coming along, but they were already there. Nathaniel stepped through, pulling Samiel and me after him. I hoped everyone else would get through all right.

  The portal roared with wind and pressure, and the stress of the passage made me scream in pain. Nathaniel kept a tight grip on my hand. The baby pushed inside me, and suddenly I felt like I had to push.

  Of course, he would want to break out of his little prison just this second. While I was in a portal having my head squashed.

  Nathaniel and I emerged from the portal less than gracefully. He pulled me into his arms and opened his wings at the very last second so that we didn’t crash to the ground. Samiel did the same, and we all floated down to wait for the others.

  First Beezle came through with Jack Dabrowski, who promptly threw up as soon as he exited the portal. Beezle flew away from him and landed on my shoulder.

  “Humans are disgusting,” he said.

  “You’ve never seen yourself eating chili,” I said.

  J.B. came next, followed by Jude.

  Nathaniel turned to close the portal once our head count was complete. For the second time I saw him struggling to complete a task that should have been very easy for him.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “There’s something else in the portal,” Nathaniel said, his eyes wide. “I can’t close it.”

  A ghostly hand as large as my head emerged from the portal. It looked like a special effect from a movie, a huge groping appendage.

  “It’s Lucifer,” I said, and that was when my body finally laid down the hammer. I fell to the ground, the contractions so close and painful that I couldn’t think about anything else.

  “Close that portal!” Beezle shouted. He fluttered to the ground next to me, putting his little clawed hand in mine. I squeezed his fingers so hard as the contractions came that he pulled away from me. “Ow! Jeez, what are you trying to do, break my hand?”

  Nathaniel and Samiel were facing the portal, straining together to close it. Jude changed back into a man and came to kneel at my side.

  “Put some clothes on,” I said weakly.

  “You should see yourself right now,” Jude said, taking my other hand. “And even though I am naked, I say this in a completely nonsexual, nonthreatening way—you have to take your pants off.”

  “Yeah, the kid is going to come out at that end,” Beezle said. “You don’t want him to strangle on your Eeyore pajamas.”

  “My pajamas are ruined,” I said, glancing down at myself. I was covered in blood and birthing fluid and dirt from rolling on the ground.

  Another contraction came, and I rolled to my back. J.B. had joined Nathaniel and Samiel to help try to push Lucifer’s magic into the portal. I felt something huge approaching, and realized that Lucifer himself was following the grasping, ghostly hand.

  “He’s coming!” I shouted. “You have to close it and seal it, now!”

  I pushed some energy out and into Nathaniel, and it was just enough to help snap the portal shut. Nathaniel and J.B. hurriedly poured their power into an incantation to seal the portal so Lucifer couldn’t reopen it from inside. He would have to go out again, make a new portal to our location, and then try to come through. Assuming he was able to figure out where we were. I didn’t even know where we were. It looked like a forest clear
ing. We might not even be on Earth. I could hardly think anymore. My stomach felt like it was going to split open and I had to push. Only pushing would make the pain stop.

  As soon as the portal was closed, Nathaniel was with me, talking, murmuring encouragement, helping me take off the unnecessary garments and get into the proper position for the birth. He kneeled before me, ready to catch the baby when he emerged.

  J.B. moved behind me and put my head in his lap. My hair was wet with sweat and I could hardly breathe. Samiel sat opposite Jude, holding my hand, totally unaffected by my death grip on his fingers. He looked worried, and I tried not to let it worry me. He was a guy and the whole birth thing probably seemed strange and frightening to him.

  It was strange and frightening to me, too, but I would never admit it. I was a woman and I wasn’t supposed to be afraid of this.

  I suddenly realized I didn’t know where Jack was. I looked around and saw him holding a smartphone up, filming the whole thing.

  “You had a phone this whole time?” I shrieked.

  He looked at me over the top of the screen. “Of course. Lucifer trashed my camera but I’ve always got some kind of backup. I filmed that whole battle on the lawn at his house. It’s going to be awesome when it goes live on the net.”

  “Do you not remember that I wanted a phone when we were trying to get out of the basement?” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “I don’t know. I was kind of out of it and you didn’t seem to be making a lot of sense. You were talking about pajama pants, not phones.”

  “And if video of this birth ends up online—” I began, but I didn’t even need to finish. Nathaniel looked at the phone and it caught fire in Jack’s hands. He dropped it to the ground with a howl.

  “Dammit! How much of my equipment are you people going to destroy?”

  “All of it until you stop taking pictures of Madeline,” Nathaniel said. “Sooner or later the lesson will sink in.”