“Why not?”
“The wolves have a long-standing argument with Lucifer. They don’t want Lucifer to gain any leverage with Amarantha that might affect their land claim.”
“Is there anyone not negotiating with Amarantha right now?” I said, annoyed. “Just how many players are in the pond here?”
“She just signed a new treaty with the vampires regarding right-of-way access, so they’re out of the picture right now,” J.B. said. “Other than that, pretty much everyone is in and out of the court for one reason or another.”
I blew out a breath. “Just why the hell did Lucifer think that I could handle this?”
Beezle and J.B. looked at each other.
“Yes, I know, that’s what you two know-it-alls tried to tell me yesterday. I’ll figure it out. J.B., go home and get some sleep. If you keep doing that to your hair, it’s going to fall out.”
“I’m overwhelmed by your gratitude. ‘Thanks, J.B., for making sure that your mom didn’t send her assassins to remove all my limbs one by one.’”
I kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, J.B. Now, come back tomorrow morning around ten so you can escort me to the court. Surely she won’t chop off my head on sight if her son is part of my entourage.”
“Don’t count on it,” he said, and disappeared out the front door.
“Can I sleep in my nest?” Beezle asked.
“No,” I said. “You can set something up on my dresser.”
“Your dresser is hard,” he complained.
“So get a pillow,” I replied. “You’re the one who’s always going on about how cold it is outside.”
After about fifteen minutes of grumping and grumbling, I finally got Beezle settled. I collapsed on the bed and closed my eyes in an instant. And when I slept, I dreamed of Gabriel.
It was dark where he was, so dark and cold, a pit of frozen stone. The stone was black as night and shone in the faint gleam that emitted from the top of the pit. Gabriel’s eyes gave off a slight glow from the shadows.
He was naked and shivering, and in the light I could see long welts clotted with blood on his back, his arms, his shoulders. He had only been gone for a little more than a day, but his face had a gaunt, haggard look, as if he hadn’t been eating. Since I couldn’t see any sign of food or water, he probably hadn’t been.
He hunched over his knees, arms wrapped around his legs, his wings enclosing his body in a makeshift blanket. Gabriel was always so calm, so self-assured, and it hurt my heart to see him trembling on the ground like a lost child.
I held my hand out to him, knowing that I could not touch him, that this was only a dream, when suddenly he looked up.
“Madeline?” he said. His face was alight with hope.
“Gabriel,” I replied, and I brushed my hand over his cheek, expecting to feel his skin beneath my fingertips, the dark stubble that grew there. But of course I couldn’t. I wasn’t really there.
“Madeline?” he asked again, and his eyes searched for some sign of me. Disappointment crept over his face.
“I’m here, Gabriel,” I said. “I’m here. I’m coming for you.”
But he dropped his head to his knees. He didn’t see me. He didn’t hear me. I felt a moment of despair. What good was I to him, or to anybody? How had I let this happen in the first place?
Then I realized I could at least try to find out where he was. I drifted upward through the pit. There was a long channel above the hole where Gabriel was held. The channel was far too narrow for Gabriel to fly through, and too smooth to climb. His captors must have found some way to suppress his magic as well, or no prison would be enough to keep him there.
I wondered if they’d simply dropped him into the hole or if they had cared enough about broken bones to lower him gently. Judging from the whip marks on his back, it was probably the former.
I floated through the open hole at the top of the pit and emerged in a cave. There was no sign of Gabriel’s captors, no sign of life of any kind. There was only black volcanic rock and gray sand. I couldn’t smell anything or feel heat or cold, so from my point of view it was a basically a non-descript cave. It could have been anywhere in the world.
I let myself drift along, toes just brushing the fine sand that covered the ground everywhere I looked. After a few minutes I came to the end of the cave. The tunnel turned abruptly and opened out over the edge of a cliff. I went right up to the edge and looked down.
Even though I was some kind of ghost or floating aspect here, I still had a moment of vertigo. The cliff dropped away to a sheer face that fell maybe two hundred feet to a thin creek bed, long empty of water. There was a wide expanse of open plain on the other side of the creek, gray sand and gray sky and clouds exploding with lightning.
I had a foreboding feeling as I looked around this dead place, gray as far as the eye could see. I looked and looked and finally found what I expected.
Far in the distance I could see the clawed outline of a tree, white as bone, scraping its branches like talons across the sky.
“The Forbidden Lands,” I said. It was a place that I had never wanted to see again, the place where Lucifer and the Grigori had imprisoned the nephilim. It was the place where Ramuell had torn out my heart, the place where I had died once—for a little while.
Who had brought Gabriel here and dropped him into that oubliette? If they wanted him for some purpose—as a ransom or a slave—then why leave him here to be forgotten?
Suddenly there was a movement on the plain below. From the right of the cliff that I stood upon came a single individual. At this distance I could detect only the gleam of golden hair and of white wings, marking him of angelic descent.
From the left came a small group, knotted tightly together and moving almost as one body except for the leader. He strode ahead to meet the individual coming from the other direction. All I could see of the leader was that he was tall and horned—that plus the multicolored glob of beings behind him told me that he was a demon.
I needed to get closer and find out who these characters were and if they had anything to do with Gabriel’s kidnapping. I knew that my physical body was not here, and that even if it were here, I could fly. But it still took everything I had to step off the edge of the cliff.
I fell slowly, floating downward like a dandelion seed drifting on the breeze. It seemed to take an eternity before I met the ground. I landed softly in the sand, and my bare feet made no impression. It was only then that I realized I wore nothing but my only white nightgown—a favorite of Gabriel’s—and it wasn’t even what I had actually put on to sleep in. I felt suddenly vulnerable, that if I presented myself like this in the sight of those demons, they would fall upon me and devour me.
But that was absurd. Gabriel couldn’t see me. I was dreaming, or having a vision, but I wasn’t really here. This might be my only chance to find out who took Gabriel, and why, and to try to figure out how to get him back.
I had landed several feet behind the angel. His wings were up and outspread and obscured his face from the angle at which I stood. I approached cautiously, hugging the cliff face even though one of the demon entourage would surely raise a cry if I could be seen.
The demon in charge, the one speaking with the angel, looked a lot like my half brother. He so resembled Antares that I had to do a double take to make sure that it wasn’t him. The leader was about nine feet tall, with red skin, oversized bat wings and gleaming black horns jutting from the top of his forehead. He had a strange sigil, almost like an ampersand with the bottom curl cut off, branded on his face.
The sight of that sigil gave me a flash of memory. Antares tossing me down the stairs, telling me that he would be honored above all others when he brought my heart to his master. He showed me the same sigil on his hand, the sign of Focalor. Focalor was one of Azazel’s enemies, but he could not openly declare war against Azazel because that would be tantamount to declaring open war on Lucifer. Was this creature Focalor, or another one of his toadies like Ant
ares?
I crept carefully toward the angel and the demon, who were deep in conversation, in order to hear what they said. Unfortunately, I was doomed to disappointment. They seemed to be speaking some kind of language that involved a lot of grunting and gesturing. The demon was annoyed with the angel, and as they talked his face grew thunderous. The band of demons behind him moved restlessly as their leader became more fractious. I still could not see the face of the angel, but his body language was unyielding. There would obviously be no negotiations with him.
I studied the demons, looking for a familiar face. The only other demons that I had ever seen had been with Antares, and if I saw one of them in this group, then at least I would have some kind of lead to follow. Tracking down Antares wasn’t too hard. He showed up at my house every chance he got.
I moved a little closer, hoping to at least see the face of the angel dealing with a demon as if it were his equal. This was a big no-no in the courts of the fallen. There was a pretty strict caste system there, with the Grigori—the first fallen—at the top, then other angels, then demons, who acted almost as servants to the castes above.
Certain crossbreeds were tolerated at higher levels—like me, because I was pretty much descended from fallen royalty—but others like Gabriel ranked below the lowest demons. Within the general groups there were even stricter breakdowns of hierarchy, which had a lot to do with how much power you had, who was in your entourage, who your parents were, or all of the above. It was pretty extraordinary to see an angel treating a demon this way.
I drifted over the sand as the discussion grew more animated. Because of the position of the party I had to approach the angel almost directly from behind. As I drew within a few feet of him, he suddenly stopped speaking and turned around.
His eyes widened, green eyes filled with malice.
Samiel.
It was as if he saw me floating there when no one else could. I heard a voice in my head say, “Enemy.”
He reached for me, his fist uncurling to tear out my heart, just like his father had done.
“No,” I whispered, and my body filled with terror. How could he see me? How did he know that I was there?
“Madeline!”
Gabriel’s voice. Gabriel. I had to get away. I shot upward, away from Samiel’s clawing fingers, up the side of the cliff, back into the cave. Samiel came right behind me, a relentless machine, wanting only one thing—vengeance for the deaths of his mother and father.
I turned around and around in the cave, realizing I’d fallen into a trap. Now I would be torn to pieces by demons.
“Maddy!”
Samiel bore down on me, his face unyielding, his eyes furious.
“Enemy.”
“Maddy!” A gravelly voice, one that I knew very well.
“Madeline!” Gabriel calling from the oubliette.
“Enemy.”
Enemy, enemy, enemy.
“Maddy!” Beezle shouted, and he sounded so angry with me, and I woke up.
Beezle crouched at my shoulder, looking scared and annoyed. I shifted onto my elbows and realized the bedsheets were soaked in sweat.
“You were having a nightmare. It was keeping me awake,” Beezle said. “What were you dreaming about? You kept screaming ‘enemy’ over and over again.”
I sat up farther and rubbed my face with my hands. “It wasn’t a dream, I don’t think.”
Beezle held up his hands. “Oh, no. No more visions. Remember the last time you had visions? You were possessed by Evangeline and tricked into the nephilims’ prison.”
“Well, that turned out okay,” I said, annoyed. “I did defeat Ramuell in the end.”
“And lost some of your humanity in the process,” Beezle reminded me.
I put my hand over my chest to the place where my heartstone pulsed in place of my human heart. It felt warm there, like the sun. Samiel had wanted to tear out my heart, just like Ramuell had. I shuddered and threw the blankets off, nearly tossing Beezle across the room in the process. He scowled at me as he fluttered above the bed.
“All right, let’s hear it,” Beezle said. “Tell me about this latest complication.”
I told Beezle about the vision—Gabriel in the pit, Samiel and the demon. He looked troubled.
“It sounds like they might be arranging a trade for Gabriel,” Beezle said.
“That’s what I thought, too. The only question is, which of them took him in the first place and which of them wants him badly enough to trade?”
“Actually, there’s a more serious problem here. If a representative of Focalor is dealing for Gabriel, that’s tantamount to declaring war on Azazel’s court. Gabriel is Azazel’s servant and he’s your bodyguard. Even though he’s a half-breed, everyone in the courts knows of his importance to Azazel. And if Focalor is making such a bold move, that means he is prepared for the consequences.”
I stared at Beezle. “The whole power structure that Lucifer has built could collapse.”
Beezle nodded. “If Focalor attacks Azazel’s court openly, then other courts with grievances will see it as an opportunity to attack their enemies as well. The whole of Lucifer’s kingdom could fall to pieces in a few days. This is why Lucifer and the Grigori keep such a ruthless hold on the courts.”
“It only takes the tipping of one domino for the whole run to be knocked down,” I said. “I had no idea that the kingdom was so fragile.”
“Lucifer has kept control of some of the most dangerous creatures in the world for millennia. A lot of those creatures would be unbelievably deadly to humans if they did not abide by his rules and stay within his confines, and I’m not just talking about the demons, either.”
I couldn’t imagine what would happen to the world if Lucifer’s control was broken. Would there be demons running amok? Open warfare among the angels? Would demons rise up against their masters? All of those things would probably happen, and more. It would be horrible beyond imagining.
“Horrors beyond your comprehension . . .” That was what Antares had said. Had he known about this? If he was close to Focalor, he probably would have known of his master’s plans. And Antares certainly would relish an opportunity to get back at Gabriel, who had humiliated him in front of his demon buddies. Had Antares taken Gabriel in the alley for Focalor? Why would Samiel want him?
And was any of this connected to the hidden portal in Amarantha’s kingdom? I still didn’t know who had put that portal there, or why, although Antares had done a good job of using it to his advantage and destabilizing my relations with the faerie court before I even arrived.
I put my hand to my head in the place where a stress headache was rapidly forming. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate, I needed to prevent the total collapse of Lucifer’s kingdom as well?
Beezle watched me silently, and I’m fairly certain he guessed most of what I was thinking. He can be a pretty perceptive gargoyle when he wants to be.
The problem was that I wasn’t exactly sure what I should do with this knowledge. If I went to Lucifer, he might be able to stop Focalor before his plans unfolded but that would be a guaranteed death sentence for Gabriel.
I could try to rescue Gabriel. But, one: he had probably been moved by now. And, two: even if he hadn’t been moved, I wasn’t sure I could find the oubliette. It wasn’t as though I was an expert in the geography of the Forbidden Lands.
I wasn’t sure who might have him now, and what purpose he might serve for their plans. Basically, I wasn’t sure of anything except for the fact that it was half past five and there was no way I was going to be able to sleep again after that vision.
“Oatmeal?” I asked Beezle.
He made a face at me. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Chocolate-hazelnut spread on toast?” I guessed.
“Now you’re talking,” he said, and followed me into the kitchen.
After breakfast I was no closer to a solution than before. I felt that Gabriel’s safety was paramount, but Beezle argued t
hat if there was a war between the courts, Gabriel probably wouldn’t be much safer than the rest of us. On top of everything, my trip to the faerie court was today, and there was no way that I could put it off after the burning-down-the-forest debacle.
So I packed my things with a heavy heart and made an effort to dress like a grown-up. I usually wear black boots, blue jeans, and black sweaters every day in the winter, but buried in the back of my closet were a couple of suits and a nice skirt and blouse. I tried everything on to make sure that it fit okay. The suits were a little tighter than they used to be—my curves were a lot curvier than I remembered. Beezle opened his mouth to say something and I glared at him.
“Not one word,” I said. “You’re the one who makes me keep all the junk food in the house.”
“I’m a growing gargoyle,” Beezle said.
“Yeah, growing horizontally,” I muttered, but not loud enough for him to hear.
Nathaniel came upstairs a little before ten. He was all spiffed up in a dark suit and a blue tie that made his eyes look electric bright. He looked over my gray pencil skirt and black blouse with a critical eye.
“Don’t you have any colors that are not drab as winter?” he said. “Amarantha is not going to be impressed by your appearance.”
“She doesn’t have to be. She just has to listen to me,” I said, my pride stinging. I’d actually made an effort to fix up my hair, put on makeup and heels, and generally look neater than usual. He could at least have offered a token “You look nice.”
He frowned. “I’m not certain that she will take you seriously when you look like someone’s secretary.”
I actually felt the blast of nightfire crackling under my fingertips before Beezle laid a restraining claw on my shoulder.
“You can kill him later,” he said, and I eased down. I didn’t need Nathaniel’s opinion to validate me, anyway.
The doorbell rang right at ten.
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