Black Wings bw-1

by Christina Henry

  As I climbed I had time to calm down and think. I was confused by the smell of sulfur since Ramuell hadn’t made it any farther than the last floor. The smell could mean only one other thing—demons. How had they managed to get inside? The building was warded against magical intruders. There are a lot of supernatural creatures—witches, faeries and the like—that would love to have foreknowledge of certain deaths, and it was in our interest to keep them out.

  Of course, I thought, the existence of demons isn’t exactly common knowledge. J.B. hadn’t believed they existed until one of them nearly filleted him. Maybe the wards hadn’t stipulated the repellence of demons.

  And had Ramuell purposely brought the demons with him, or had they simply hitched a ride when they saw him busting into the building? Ramuell had obviously been looking for me, but why would demons attack one of death’s regional offices?

  The carnage grew worse as I climbed, until my boots were ankle deep in monster bits, and I clung to the railing so that I wouldn’t fall flat on my face.

  “This is stupid,” I said, and let my wings out.

  I rose through the well between the winding staircase until I reached the rooftop. My wings tucked neatly behind my back, I kicked open the door and rushed out, prepared for an attack.

  I did not expect to see J.B. blasting magic at a demon with some kind of wooden rod. I also didn’t expect to find him winning. As with the staircase, there were demon parts everywhere.

  As I watched, J.B. seemed to focus his power and gave one last strong blast from the rod. It hit the demon squarely in the chest and the thing burst into monster confetti. J.B. panted, wiping blood from his face with his sleeve. I ran to his side and identified the pine-tar smell from the hallway. He reeked of it.

  “What happened? Where the hell is Gabriel? And what’s that thing you’re playing with?” I asked.

  “I told you that you don’t know everything about my powers.”

  “Fine. I was wrong. So what’s up with your powers, then?”

  “Let’s just say that my mother is about as interesting as your father. I’ll tell you a story about her sometime. And I’m perfectly well, thanks for asking, Black,” he said, his face pale and drawn and dotted with small burn marks. From the demonic blood, no doubt. “I’ve just taken out a platoon of demons by myself, but why should you care?”

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “No, but ...”

  “Then I need to find Gabriel. Where did he go?” I was worried. Gabriel had sworn to my father that he wouldn’t leave my side, and I knew that Gabriel took his vows very seriously. He wouldn’t have left me behind unless he had to.

  “He was chasing that asshole from your front lawn, the one who tried to kill me,” J.B. said.

  “Antares? He was here?”

  That was worrisome. That was more than worrisome. It meant that Antares had tracked either J.B. or myself here, and likely for reasons of demonic vengeance. That meant that all those Agents had been slaughtered on our account. I already had Greenwitch’s death on my soul. How many more people would be killed because they had been caught in the cross fire of a war they could never understand?

  “Tell me exactly where they went.”

  “Black, you can’t be thinking of going after them. That Gabriel guy looked like he had things pretty well under control. What is he, anyway? He isn’t any Agent, not with powers like that.”

  “Just tell me where the hell they went, Jake!” I shouted, and J.B. backed away from me a little.

  “You’ve got that freaky star-eye thing going again,” he said.

  “Now!” Even in times of crisis, J.B. Bennett was the one person in the world who could push my buttons and make me act like a toddler.

  “Antares took off flying and Gabriel followed him. They went toward the lake.”

  “Right. I’m after them, and I’ll check in with you later,” I said, and then remembered something. “J.B., have you seen the lobby?”

  “Yes,” he said grimly. “If there is anyone left in the building, I’ll coordinate cleanup and . . . disposal.”

  “I told some people to stay in the Hall of Records until you came for them. They should still be there, waiting.”

  He nodded, his eyes far away, probably already thinking about the Agent pieces that needed to be collected and returned to their families, if possible. I hated to leave him to deal with this alone, but I had to find Gabriel. I launched from the roof and flew toward the lake, my eyes searching for any sign of Gabriel or Antares.

  I crossed Michigan and then over Millennium Park, and just as I was about to fly over the yacht club at Monroe I looked down and noticed that traffic was backed up on Lake Shore Drive. It was unusual for traffic to be that bad in the middle of the day. I panicked, thinking that Gabriel and Antares had taken their battle to the street and that collateral damage was piling up even as I searched for them.

  Then I noticed the two cars snarled together in the right lane, and the ambulance, and the blue police lights flashing. And I remembered that I had a pickup on Lake Shore Drive at two thirty-seven. I glanced at my watch. It was already two forty-five.

  “Fuck!” I shouted. I am not inclined toward regular use of expletives, but when I do use them I put my whole heart into it. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

  I hesitated for a moment, hovering above the scene of the accident.Should I perform my sacred duty or go after Gabriel? I could almost hear the conversation that I would have with J.B. if I told him I hadn’t collected three souls. Sacred duty won out. I could find Gabriel and Antares afterward.

  I flapped slowly down to the accident scene, looking for the souls I was to take to the Door. I circled around a few times, checked the ambulance and the cars, but there was no one. Just like with James Takahashi, the souls had broken loose and were condemned to wander the Earth because I had screwed up.

  I thought of my promise to Takahashi that I would keep him safe. I thought of Greenwitch’s head rolling to my feet. I thought of the Agents whose families had nothing left of their loved ones except bits that hadn’t been chewed on by monsters. I thought of a limbless torso and blood spattered on the wall. I thought of Patrick’s body underneath the Metra overpass, and holding my mother’s lifeless form in my arms.

  The grief rose up so suddenly and completely that I couldn’t control it. Tears filled my eyes. My throat was choked with sobs, great heaving sobs that seemed to have no end. From the time I’d discovered Patrick I had been careening around, completely useless, leaving a string of bodies and lost souls behind me. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t the one who had killed them. My incompetence had contributed to their deaths. And my very existence had caused the carnage at the Agency; Ramuell and Antares would never have been in that building if not for me.

  I cried so hard I couldn’t see. I lowered myself to a park bench that faced the bike path so I wouldn’t fall to the ground and get smashed by a car. Just because nobody could see me when I had my wings out didn’t mean that the laws of physics stopped applying. If I was hit by a car while I was invisible, it would still hurt.

  Joggers trotted past me with their iPods blasting. Cyclists zipped by dressed in brightly colored spandex. Wealthy retirees walked tiny little dogs that yipped. Mothers in yoga pants pushed jogging strollers and dispensed goldfish crackers to their restless children.

  All of them were completely unaware of my presence, unaware of the other world that butted up against their normal, everyday existence. Demons. Angels. Faeries. Werewolves. Witches. Vampires. Agents of death. Creatures that were fun to read about in books or see in movies, but could never have a place in their comfortable, ordinary, everyday lives.

  I put my head in my hands and let the sobs come. I had never felt so helpless, so much like a failure, as I did in that moment.

  “Excuse me?” A woman’s voice, light and soft.

  I ignored it. Nobody was talking to me. Nobody could see me.

  “Excuse me? Miss? Are you here for us?” I felt
a hand brush my shoulder, featherlight, and I looked up.

  A young woman in her twenties stood there, fashionable without being too chic. A man about the same age with stubbled cheeks and a shaggy haircut had his hand on her shoulder. The woman held a wide-eyed little boy of about four in her arms.

  These were my lost souls.

  I felt a pang as I looked into the little boy’s eyes. Another lost life, so much promise snuffed out. But death has its own rhythms and reasons, and I comforted myself with the thought that they would all be together when they faced the Door.

  “Yes,” I said, wiping the tears from my face. I stood up and let my wings out, trying to present myself with a little dignity. “Yes, I am here for you.”

  I held out my hand. The little boy smiled and put his fingers in mine.

  The Door closed, and my sight returned. The souls had entered together and there was no trace of them left on Earth.

  I felt drained as I flew from the Door. I needed to find Gabriel, but it occurred to me that I didn’t even have his cell phone number—or my father’s, for that matter. I had no way to get in touch with either of them.

  I thought briefly about returning to the office building downtown, but—coward that I am—I couldn’t face the thought of sifting through the bodies. I knew that I should, that since their deaths were my responsibility I should be there. But I couldn’t. I was exhausted; I was frightened; I was alone and unsure about my next move.

  Gabriel was gone, presumably off fighting Antares and hopefully not lying dead or injured in a ditch somewhere. I didn’t know what I would do if he didn’t return to me. The search through the Hall of Records had yielded no usable information for finding Ramuell unless he decided to attack me. I needed Gabriel to help me try to trace Greenwitch’s magic so that we could find Ramuell’s master. I was paralyzed without him.

  And it wasn’t just that I needed him to find and fight Ramuell. I had barely had time to think over the past couple of days, much less sift through my feelings, but I knew one thing for sure—there was no way in hell that I was marrying Nathaniel, and I was going to do everything I could to find some way for Gabriel and me to be together. I had a year’s grace from my father and I was going to use it.

  I headed toward home on autopilot, worried about Gabriel and about my newest power. I followed the lake shore since my house was north and just a little west. Just as I was about to fly over Addison I noticed a flashing light out of the corner of my eye. I turned more fully, hovering in the air, and saw what looked like a geographically isolated lightning storm high above Hollywood Beach.

  A lightning storm. In the middle of a clear blue autumn sky.

  “Gabriel,” I breathed, and shot toward the light.

  I flew as fast as I could, my wings beating against the air, my breath coming in harsh pants. As I got closer I saw Gabriel lay a blast of nightfire at Antares, and Antares fly upward, avoiding it. He held a silver charm in his fist and he pointed it in Gabriel’s direction. A blast of magic emitted from it, strongly scented with sage. This must be Greenwitch’s magic, then.

  Gabriel neatly avoided the blast just as I reached him. Antares narrowed his eyes at me in hatred.

  “You!” he spat, and tried to blast me with the same magic he’d just launched at Gabriel.

  As it had before, my magic seemed to know what to do even if I did not. I held up my hand and a blue pulse emitted from my palm. It captured Antares’s magic and deadened it, almost like an electromagnetic pulse will knock out anything technological.

  Gabriel looked at me with respect. “Impressive. Where did you learn to do that?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said. I was starting to worry that my magic and my body were not my own, that some other force was working through me, and I had a strong suspicion about the name of that force. But I was wary of mentioning Evangeline. The last time I’d thought of her I’d blacked out. I really didn’t want to do that now and fall in the lake.

  “So what’s the deal with the charm? I figured you’d have taken Antares by now, being half nephilim and all,” I said to Gabriel, as Antares watched us with narrowed eyes, plotting his next move.

  Gabriel made apfffing noise. “The demon cheats. He has no magic of his own other than simple spells, so he borrows his dead mother’s power.”

  That seemed unusual—not that I was an authority on demon magic. But Antares came from two exceptionally powerful parents—Greenwitch and Azazel. Shouldn’t he have had some magic of his own? Then again, perhaps his lack of power was the reason why he’d been passed over as heir to Azazel’s court.

  Antares had settled on the long-held tactic of talking your opponent to death. “Little virgin, I will have your eyes for your part in my mother’s death.”

  “First it was my heart; then it was my entrails; now it’s my eyes,” I complained. “Can’t you just pick a body part and get to it,little brother?”

  “Ah, so the outcast has told you who I am.” Antares’s eyes flickered to Gabriel. “It will be doubly precious to dismember you, knowing that Azazel’s grief will be legendary.”

  “That’s assuming you can get near me in the first place. You can’t even fight without borrowed magic—or a gang of cronies to back you up,” I sneered.

  If Antares hadn’t already been red, I’m sure I would have seen him blush. He gritted his teeth. “Make no mistake, sister. You have the blood of my mother on your hands and I will have vengeance. You will not be able to sleep or wake without looking over your shoulder for me. I will not rest until I have destroyed you and our father utterly.”

  “Right,” I said, and inside me my magic sang out for Antares’s destruction. I realized that if I didn’t destroy him, he would dog me until I made a mistake, and then he would kill me. So I didn’t stop to think. I let the magic have its way.

  The same white flames that had scorched Ramuell in the office downtown burst from my fingertips. Antares’s mouth fell open in shock, and then a moment later he was gone, with no time to even cry out.

  Gabriel moved away from me a little, as if he were afraid. “Madeline, what did you do?”

  “Nuked him,” I said, breathing hard, unable to believe it had been that easy. “Neat trick, huh?”

  “These unexpected manifestations of your power aside, you have now endangered yourself yet again,” Gabriel said angrily.

  “Whatnow?” I shouted. “What violation of protocol did I commit by killing a demon who swore up and down that he was going to hunt me to the ends of the Earth? Why the hell can’t I just smash the guy who was responsible for the deaths of dozens of my colleagues?”

  “I know you do not understand,” Gabriel said. “But the system of loyalty and protocol within Lucifer’s kingdom is absolute. Antares was Azazel’s son and Focalor’s thrall. The law of the kingdom forbids blood combat between siblings in order to preserve peace and prevent unnecessary grasping of the throne within each court.”

  “So it was okay for Antares to show up at my house and kick the snot out of me?”

  “No,” Gabriel said patiently. “It was not ‘okay.’ Azazel was planning to capture and punish Antares.”

  “ ‘Punish’ meaning ‘kill,’ right? So I saved Azazel a step.”

  “No. Azazel would not have been able to kill Antares because he was Focalor’s thrall, and there are also laws about harming the subjects of another Grigori. Lucifer does not want constant bloodshed in his kingdom. The laws are designed to prevent the courts from going to war over minor slights.”

  “So what now?” I said, still angry. “Do I get punished for taking out Antares?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said. “But not by Azazel, who would likely simply torture you briefly and release you.”

  I felt queasy. “Just a little torture before breakfast? No problem.”

  “Yes, there is a problem. Because Antares owed allegiance to Focalor and you owe allegiance to Azazel, there are two possible outcomes. The first is that Azazel and Focalor will engage i
n combat to the death, in Lucifer’s court, before witnesses.”

  “And the other option?” I said.

  “Azazel can give you to Focalor as an apology.”

  My stomach lurched. I could imagine what my fate would be.

  “That’s not good,” I said.

  “No. It is not.”

  18

  GABRIEL DIDN’T SPEAK TO ME ALL THE WAY HOME. I felt that the silent treatment was a little unfair, considering that I was the one who was going to get handed over to an unknown Grigori court to be used as a plaything. It never crossed my mind that Azazel might engage in blood combat for me. Gabriel had indicated to me time and again that Azazel would do nothing to risk his court or the sanctity of Lucifer’s kingdom.

  Beezle was in the kitchen when we returned. He was watching a bag of popcorn go around on the microwave plate. I could see three torn and discarded bags at the top of the garbage can.

  “What happened?” he asked, yanking the bag of cooked popcorn from the microwave and shoving fistfuls in his mouth. “Why were you gone so long? Did you find out anything in the Hall of Records?”

  Gabriel crossed to the cabinet where I kept the hot chocolate and pulled out three packets, and then he filled the kettle with water and placed it on the stove. Apparently he was in need of some therapeutic chocolate. He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter next to the stove, stony-eyed and silent.

  Between Beezle’s nervous popcorn binge and all of the extra hot chocolate being consumed, there was a trip to the warehouse store in my future. I wondered if I would have time to do something as ordinary as shop for groceries ever again. And if I did have time, what were the chances that I would be able to get through a trip without being attacked by something freaky?

  “We didn’t find anything in the Hall of Records. Ramuell, Antares and a bunch of demons attacked the field office. Dozens of Agents are dead. J.B. has powers that I have never seen before, and I didn’t have any time to really ask him about them. I tried burning Ramuell to death and he escaped into a portal. Gabriel chased Antares away from the building and I caught up with them. And then I nuked Antares. Oh, yeah, that’s a new power of mine.”