“And if they do, what then?” I said, stepping away from the window.
“Only the power of the home will stand between you and them,” Beezle said. “And I imagine they can find a way to make us pretty miserable with just one thin layer of protection between us and Lucifer’s rage.”
“You seem very calm about all this,” I said.
He looked up from the pregnancy book. “Either I’m in a food coma or I just know you. Sooner or later you’ll come up with a solution. It will probably involve fire and destruction, but you’ll find a way to chase him off like you have everything else that’s ever come after you.”
I took the baby back from Nathaniel, shaking my head. “Everything else was nothing compared to Lucifer. I’ve never managed to beat Lucifer or his brothers at any game.”
“This isn’t a game,” Beezle reminded me.
“They’ve treated it as such,” I said. “They’ve twisted and manipulated and put me in untenable positions over and over again. And why are they teaming up all of a sudden? I thought they hated each other.”
Beezle shrugged. “Maybe they don’t. Not really. Not when it comes down to it. They are brothers.”
“Brothers who’ve gone to war time and again,” I said. “And where is Daharan in all this?”
Nathaniel and Beezle exchanged a familiar look. I raised my hand to stop them from saying anything.
“I’m sorry I mentioned his name. Don’t start,” I said.
The baby hadn’t stopped crying since the house started shaking. I rubbed his back, shushing him, and after a few moments he calmed down.
“Have you named him yet?” Nathaniel asked, putting his arm protectively around my shoulder.
I shook my head. “Nothing seems to sound right to me.”
“You could name him for his father,” Nathaniel said. He was obviously trying to distract me from the nightmare outside.
“He’s not a junior,” I said, going along with it. “He’s his own little self.”
“How about Nicholas?” Beezle said.
I wrinkled my nose. “Nope.”
“Scott? Michael? Jonquil?”
“Hey,” J.B. said.
“I wouldn’t do that to my kid. Sorry, J.B.,” I said.
“Don’t be. There’s a reason why I go by my initials,” he said.
“Yeah, and your initials don’t even stand for Jonquil whatever,” Beezle said. “Because before we knew your real name and Maddy was annoyed with you, she called you ‘Jacob Benjamin.’”
“If your name was Jonquil, you’d have another name, too,” J.B. said. “Besides, it’s not like Jacob Benjamin is a random choice. It was my father’s name for me. And it is my legal human name.”
The house continued to be battered by the storm outside, the physical manifestation of Lucifer’s anger.
“You know, I don’t really get it,” I said, and I was surprised at the calm in my voice. Lucifer was trying to shake my house to the ground in order to kidnap my child and I wasn’t feeling nearly as panicked about this as I thought I would. “Why is he so bound and determined to have my baby? It sort of made sense when I was his last link to Evangeline. But now he’s got the kid he and Evangeline conceived in the land of the dead.”
“But that kid is a weird freaky monster,” Beezle said. “He can hardly present a child like that as his right hand and heir in front of the court of the Grigori. Angels are very vain creatures.”
“So what you’re saying is that even though Lucifer has paid a lot of lip service to loving all of his children the same, he really loves the photogenic ones more?” I asked.
Nathaniel shook his head. “I do not think it has anything to do with Lucifer’s vanity—at least, not in the way that the gargoyle proposes. His pride has been hurt by your refusal to give in, to allow yourself to be manipulated. You escaped from his home in front of his court and his guests. He cannot allow that slight to pass.”
“And he also wants my child,” I said.
“And he also wants your child,” Nathaniel acknowledged. “As for why he wants this particular child so badly—well, we have all known that Lucifer can see the future.”
My fingers tightened on the baby, just for a moment. “You think he’s got some kind of special fate? Don’t say that. Don’t tell me that just by being born he’s been condemned to carry out some sacred mission. I grew up knowing that, hearing that it was so important to be an Agent, that without me the souls of the dead would wander the planet without a purpose. And I hated it. I hated knowing I would never be free, that I would always be shackled to that one destiny.”
“You broke free of your destiny,” J.B. reminded me. “And made Sokolov and the Agency very angry in the process.”
“Yes, but how could I have known that would happen? Nobody had ever escaped the Agency before.”
“Nobody ever escaped the Maze before, either,” J.B. said. “You’re special, Maddy. And it stands to reason that your child will be, too. Lucifer has claimed that he can’t see the future perfectly, but he saw it well enough to know that if you and Gabriel married, there would be a child. Your baby will do something in the future, for good or ill, that Lucifer wants to control. If you stack that on top of his fanatical need to keep his family close and his wounded pride at your actions, you get this.”
He gestured out the window. I didn’t need to approach the glass this time to see what was going on. Lucifer’s soul, his essence, whatever you wanted to call it, was rising out of his physical body and becoming a huge demonic manifestation in front of the house. First the tips of his horns passed the window, then his burning red eyes, then his twisted mouth and bared teeth.
I sincerely hoped that my neighbors had run away or were buttoned up tight in their basements. Collateral damage seemed like a very strong possibility at this point.
Suddenly a tremendous sound came from the roof. I looked at Nathaniel in alarm.
“He’s trying to break through the roof,” I said.
“If there’s a hole in the house, he might be able to construe that as an invitation and get around the protection of the domicile,” Beezle said, putting up his little hands in a defensive gesture when I glared at him. “I’m not sure. I’m just saying.”
“I’m not dealing with a hole in the roof on top of everything else,” I said, handing the baby to Nathaniel. The snake tattoo on my palm suddenly burned bright, like a glowing coal, and I cried out. “That’s it. I’m going outside to talk to him.”
“I do not think that is a wise idea,” Nathaniel said, handing the baby to Samiel. “But if you insist—as I imagine you will—I am going with you.”
“In the state Lucifer is in, he might kill you just because you’re in front of him,” I said. “No, you stay inside.”
“Madeline,” Nathaniel said. “Why will you not understand? You do not have to do everything alone. We are stronger together. And I would not be the man who loves you if I allowed you to face such danger while I hid inside.”
I did understand. I did. But the feelings I had for Nathaniel were new and complicated and still kind of hard to look at, and I didn’t want to lose him just as I was starting to figure things out. The image of Gabriel, run through with my father’s sword, falling in the snow with blood pooling around him—that image would never leave me. I didn’t want to see Nathaniel vaporized by Lucifer, and told him so.
“I do not think Lucifer will be able to do such a thing,” Nathaniel said. “My father is out there. He may have no love for me. He may have been willing to sacrifice me for his own ends. But I do not believe he will allow Lucifer to kill me in a fit of rage. Puck, I think, still hopes I will come around to his way of thinking. It would be more beneficial to him to keep me alive.”
“That won’t help if Lucifer blasts you before Puck realizes what’s going on,” I said.
“Puck can catch the starlight in his teeth,” Nathaniel said. “He is a creature who has not even remotely shown the depth of his power. If Lucifer tried
to blast me, as you say, then Puck would be able to stop him if he so desired.”
“There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ in there,” I said.
“Madeline, it is this simple. If you go, I go. You will not be able to stop me, and if necessary, the others will aid me in holding you here.” He looked at Jack, Jude, J.B. and Samiel, who all nodded in agreement.
“I knew that sooner or later all you men would gang up on me,” I said. “I should have thought about this earlier and got some nice, supportive girlfriends.”
“And what would you have talked about with these mythical women?” Beezle asked. “Your macramé hobby?”
“Fine,” I said to Nathaniel. “Let’s go.”
J.B. and Jude immediately fell in behind him.
“I’m not missing this,” J.B. said firmly. “And Lucifer can’t kill me without dealing with repercussions from all of Faerie. Puck is the High King of Faerie, so I think that any safety that applies to Nathaniel from that quarter would also apply to me.”
“I’m not letting you go outside to face him on your own,” Jude growled. “I watched one person I love fall at his hands. I won’t let it happen again.”
I looked at the three of them, and thought of everything we had all been through. We had started this journey together, and it was only right that we should finish it that way.
Because I was going to finish it. If I stepped outside that door, I wanted it to be the end of my association with Lucifer forever. I was no longer willing to deal with a temporary accord or a brief call of truce. I did not want to be Lucifer’s plaything for the rest of my life. Nor did I want my son to face the constant threat of his loving great-grandfather’s attention.
I turned to Samiel, who had the baby nestled in one arm. My son had fallen asleep, his tiny chest rising and falling with his soft breath. Beezle had dropped the pregnancy book and flown over to sit on Samiel’s shoulder. They both stared down at his little face in fascination. The Retrievers had woken up and had their heads on Samiel’s knees. Both of them also stared at the baby, occasionally snuffling at his head.
“You keep him safe,” I said to Beezle.
“Like I would let anything happen to him,” Beezle said, waving me away. “Now, go. Be a heroine and all that.”
Jack held his hands up. “I don’t need to be a close-up witness to this. I’ll stay here and take notes through the window.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said. He probably would take notes through the window. And then he would publish them as breaking news on his blog, along with his personal account of his time in Lucifer’s prison. I still thought he was cruising for a run-in with something big and bad and intolerant of having its news released on the Internet, but Jack seemed to have rebounded from his ordeals pretty quickly.
I started down the stairs, still in my comfy sweats. I didn’t exactly look powerful and intimidating. I didn’t have makeup on or a perfectly coiffed hairstyle. I didn’t even have the sword that I had kept so close to me for so long. It seemed like the sword, which was tied to Lucifer, would probably choose the master who forged it over the person who had carried it for a few months.
No, I didn’t look like much. And maybe to the average person neither did the ragged band behind me. But all of us had defied expectation in one way or another, over and over again. That had to count for something.
“What are you planning on doing when you get outside?” Nathaniel asked.
“I didn’t have so much of a plan as a general idea,” I said.
“Which means she hasn’t got a clue and she’s just going to roll with whatever happens,” J.B. said from behind Nathaniel. “You should know better by now.”
“Yes, I should,” said Nathaniel.
“You don’t have to sound so agreeable when you insult me,” I said, but I wasn’t really annoyed.
As we got closer to the end of the stairs my fear was rising. I wasn’t really sure what I would do at all. I had said “talk” to Lucifer, but he obviously wasn’t in a talking mood. The roof-pounding continued, and plaster was falling down from the ceiling.
Part of my mind was still upstairs with the baby, even though I knew Beezle and Samiel would defend him with their lives. It was hard to overcome that immediate instinct to be the one to protect him, to believe that only I could properly keep him safe.
But it had to end. Ever since I’d discovered I was Azazel’s daughter, my life had become a gradually escalating series of horrible events, each one worse than the last. I paused at the bottom of the stairs. Once I went outside, I’d be committed.
I might also be dead, and my child would grow up an orphan, a toy in Lucifer’s court.
“No,” I said out loud.
Nathaniel gave me a puzzled look.
“I won’t let Lucifer take my baby away, whether he kills me or not,” I said.
That thought gave me courage, and I pushed open the door. We crowded into the foyer, peering through the glass to the nightmare outside.
Lucifer’s body still stood between his two stalwart brothers, but there was a black shadow that rose from his open mouth and up over the house. This was the part of him that was currently pounding out his fury on my roof.
The other two didn’t appear to be doing much of anything except presenting a united front with Lucifer. I had to wonder again why either of them was working with a brother they claimed to despise, and why Daharan wasn’t there—on my side or Lucifer’s.
I took a deep breath, and suddenly I was hyperventilating. I was about to do something beyond frightening, something so terrifying that I could lose my life, my child, my love and my friends all in one fell swoop.
Nathaniel put his hand on my back and drew me close. He didn’t say anything, only breathed slow and even, waiting for my breath to fall in rhythm with his. And eventually, it did. The connection between us opened wider, and our power mingled, giving both of us strength.
“You see?” he murmured against my hair. “We are stronger together. We can face him. We can defeat him.”
I nodded, and I pushed open the door.
It was frigid outside, colder than winter, and I shivered all over as soon as the howling wind touched me. Rain lashed at my house. Thunder rumbled, a constant growl of menace above. Lightning struck the lawn several times as I watched.
Puck noticed us cautiously moving out onto the porch. He lazily tugged at Lucifer’s arm, his eyes bright with speculation. I’m sure he wondered just what the hell I thought I would do. I was thinking the same thing.
“Lucifer!” I called. My voice seemed to disappear into the roar of the wind, but he must have heard me.
The shadow shrank down and reentered Lucifer almost immediately. The wind and rain disappeared, though his demonic visage did not.
“Madeline,” Lucifer said, and his voice was a terrible thing that vibrated over my nerves and through my bloodstream. I truly understood for the first time that he was a monster. His heart, though born of the sun, was black as a moonless night. Whatever humanity Evangeline saw and loved in him was an illusion.
“Lucifer,” I said again. “Now that the formalities are out of the way, you can move along and stop trying to wreck my house. My property value has dropped to nothing since I met you as it is.”
Puck sniggered with laughter, covering his mouth with his hand. Lucifer glared at him, and Puck immediately went back to serious soldier mode, although his eyes still danced, as always.
“Madeline,” Lucifer said, rolling my name around in his mouth like a fine delicacy. “You still have yet to understand. All that you are, all the power within you, comes from me. You cannot defy me.”
He lifted his hand toward me and I felt something twist inside me, like he’d somehow grabbed my heart and my lungs and was crushing them in his grip. I staggered and fell against Nathaniel. The pain was searing, ten thousand times worse than the childbirth I had so recently endured.
Nathaniel shot at Lucifer with a bolt of nightfire and Lucifer batted it away casually, li
ke a man waving at a fly. He held out his other hand toward Nathaniel, to hurt him, too, but Puck stayed him.
“He is not yours,” was all he said.
“The boy attacked me,” Lucifer said.
“He is not yours to discipline,” Puck said, and Lucifer nodded.
It was interesting that Nathaniel had been right about that. Puck wouldn’t allow Lucifer to hurt his son. He might be willing to do it himself, but Lucifer had to keep his hands off. Interesting, but I wasn’t really in a state to contemplate it. It felt like everything inside me was being twisted into a giant knot. I gasped for air.
“What are you doing to her?” J.B. demanded.
“Taking back what is mine,” Lucifer said.
My throat felt like it was full, like something inside me was backing up and trying to come out. Every cell in my body seemed to strain toward Lucifer. All my limbs tingled, that horrible pins-and-needles feeling amplified.
Nathaniel gently rested me on the ground, then stood, stepping in front of me so that all I could see were his boots. I could feel his fury, the shadow inside him rising up. He seemed to grow larger, as Lucifer had done. The air was suffused with his power, so thick with magic you could choke on it.
“Let her go,” he said to Lucifer.
Lucifer’s attention was not distracted from me for a moment. The pressure inside my body never wavered. It was almost as if poison were being drawn from my blood, but it wasn’t poison that was leaving.
It was my magic.
My magic was born of the sun, born of Lucifer himself, and as both his many-greats-granddaughter and his Hound of the Hunt, my power was inextricably bound to this source. And now the source was taking that power back into himself, to show me that he could, that I was not so special after all.
“Let her go,” Nathaniel repeated.
I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I could tell that his anger would make it something foolish. J.B. knelt at my side, holding my hand.
“What can I do?” he asked.
“Stop Nathaniel,” I choked out. “Don’t let Lucifer kill him.”
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