Black Lament

by Christina Henry

  Some time later I was surrounded by a pile of hair. What was left on top of my head was a shapeless mess, but it was short. I rubbed my hand over the nape of my neck, which felt bare and exposed. I looked down at the remains of my crowning glory, remembered Gabriel with his hands in my hair.

  Tears welled up again, but I suppressed them ruthlessly. I had made this choice, and it was too late for regrets.

  I dusted the hair off me with a towel, then swept up the rest of it and dumped it in the trash. I went into the bedroom without looking in the mirror again. I pulled on a tank top and pajama pants and fell into bed.

  My dreams were filled with blood and ash and snow.

  Someone was touching my hair, a featherlight hand brushing over my head.

  “Gabriel?” I asked, my mind still muffled by sleep.

  The hand stilled, drew away. I opened my eyes.

  It was dark out, but in the winter it was dark by four thirty in the afternoon. There was a glint of streetlight on the metal frames of glasses.

  “J.B.,” I said, sitting up. My head felt strangely light. I reached up unconsciously and felt the shorn ends.

  “That’s a different look for you,” he said.

  “How did you get in the house?” I asked, swinging my legs out and shivering when my bare feet touched the cold floor.

  “Beezle let me in.”

  “What time is it?”

  “A little past seven.”

  My stomach grumbled. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.

  “Can we move this discussion to the kitchen?” I asked, getting up and pulling a sweatshirt and heavy socks from my dresser.

  I followed J.B. into the hall and down to the kitchen, flipping on lights as I went. The refrigerator revealed its usual sad lack of nourishment, but there were some eggs that appeared fresh and a couple of tomatoes. I couldn’t remember whether I’d bought them or Samiel had brought them upstairs, but it was fortuitous all the same.

  “Want an omelet?” I asked, checking the bread box. There were two pieces of mold-free bread left in the bag. I popped them in the toaster.

  “I ate,” he said shortly.

  Something in his tone made me pause. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, watching me bustle around, his hands fisted at his sides.

  His eyes flickered from my hacked-off hair to the claw marks on my right cheek.

  “I know,” I said resignedly, putting the carton of eggs on the counter. “I’ve looked better.”

  “When are you going to stop taking stupid risks?” he said, his voice low and angry. “When you’re dead?”

  “I didn’t think I was taking a stupid risk,” I said, stung. “I need to find Azazel.”

  “Why?” J.B. asked. “Why is it your job to find him? Let Lucifer do his own damn dirty work.”

  “He killed Gabriel.”

  “And when you hunt down Azazel and kill him, that will make everything better? Gabriel won’t be dead anymore?” His face was taut with emotion.

  “No,” I said, my temper rising to match his. “But he has to pay for what he did.”

  “A blood price? Retribution? That’s the reason the faeries are after you. Why are you right and they’re wrong?” J.B. said, his voice getting louder.

  “Azazel killed the innocent. I killed Amarantha because she was helping him, because the two of them were willing to run over anyone who got in their way. Don’t you dare try to compare me to them, or to the faeries who want me dead because of some breach of etiquette,” I shouted.

  “You never take politics seriously,” J.B. said, crossing the room to put his hands on my shoulders. He gave me a little shake. I slapped his hands away.

  “I don’t have time for politics,” I said. “I don’t have time to play games with posing monsters of any variety.”

  “You call it a game, but to everyone else it’s deadly serious. You make more enemies because you refuse to play by the rules. And every time you make another enemy, the sand in your hourglass runs a little faster.”

  My blood went cold. “Do you know something? Has the Agency seen my end?”

  “No!” J.B. shouted. “But how do you think I goddamn feel every time that list comes across my desk? Every time I read it I can feel my heart pounding, just praying to every god there ever was that I won’t see the name ‘Madeline Black.’

  “And while I might feel a moment of relief, it’s immediately replaced by the anxiety of knowing that at that very moment you’re either out there fighting for your life or pissing off someone or something that’s going to try to kill you for the insult later.”

  My temper faded. “J.B., I…”

  “Don’t apologize,” he said furiously. “You won’t change, so don’t tell me you’re sorry.”

  “Something else has happened,” I guessed. “That’s why you’re so angry.”

  The fight seemed to go out of him in a rush. He ran his hands through his short black hair. “You killed the Hob.”

  “Which was trying to kill me at the time,” I said, pointing to my cheek.

  “Well, to the faeries that’s a lot like killing Lucifer’s Hound of the Hunt,” J.B. said.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I’m not taking over the Hob’s position in your court. I already have enough to do.”

  “You misunderstand. The Hob was the creature of the highest lord and lady of all the faeries—Titania and Oberon.”

  I blinked. “You mean they’re real?”

  “Yes.” J.B. smiled briefly. “But they aren’t figures of comedy. They are creatures of the deepest cruelty, and they rule over all the minor courts of Faerie with fists of iron.”

  “So, from a social-status point of view, they’re on the same level as Lucifer,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “And they were the ones that sent the Hob after me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  “Yes, because I ‘refused to address the problem,’” J.B. said.

  “Meaning you refused to have me dragged before your court and massacred for the amusement of the nobles as retribution for killing Amarantha,” I said. “So you’ve earned the ire of Titania and Oberon as well.”

  “I don’t care about that,” J.B. said. “I care about the fact that they are going to come after you with everything they have in response to the insult you have done them by destroying their assassin.”

  “Why can’t these immortals play fair?” I complained. “I defeated their guy. That should be the end of it. Why do they get to keep throwing monsters at me until I’m crushed?”

  “Because they’re immortals,” J.B. said. “Because they have all the time in the world to grind you under their heel.”

  I felt small suddenly, disturbingly mortal despite all the power in my blood. I’d never wanted power or politics. I’d never wanted anything more than to be plain Madeline Black, and to spend the rest of my ordinary mortal life with Gabriel.

  Now Gabriel was gone, and every step I took put me in further danger because of someone else’s game. I felt the little flutter of butterfly wings deep down, and covered my stomach with my hands.

  “I’m afraid.”

  I didn’t realize I’d said it aloud until J.B. put his arms around me and pulled me close. His lips touched the spiky strands on top of my head before he rested his chin there.

  “I don’t know how to keep you safe,” he said.

  “I don’t think you can.” I sighed. “And it’s not your job, anyway.”

  “I can’t stay here. I have too many duties,” he said. “You need more help than just Beezle and Samiel.”

  “Jude’s coming back for a while. And… Nathaniel’s staying with Samiel.”

  “What? Why the hell are you letting him stay instead of sending him back to Lucifer?”

  I pushed lightly on his arms so he would release me. Then I explained what happened that day while I put an omelet together. I split the omelet in half and plated one for each of us along with buttered toast. Despite his earlier prote
stations, J.B. seemed happy to eat once the food was in front of him.

  After a while he spoke.

  “Whatever Azazel’s doing, it sounds like it’s a lot bigger than rebelling against Lucifer. Does he have some kind of agreement with the vampires? What could he possibly be making that they want?”

  “Those better be rhetorical questions, because I definitely do not have the answers. I was hoping Chloe would look at the notes in the binder and see if they made any sense to her.”

  “Good idea,” J.B. said. “I’ll send her over here tomorrow.”

  “You don’t want to take the binder with you?” I asked, surprised.

  “There is some flak coming down from upper management about using Agency resources for non-Agency problems.”

  “When have you ever abused your authority?” I asked. “You’re the straightest arrow I’ve ever met.”

  “The official decision on the memory-stealing episode is that it was a fallen matter and I should not have gotten the Agency involved.”

  “That’s stupid,” I said. “The presence of the lost souls should have automatically made it the provenance of the Agency.”

  “I’m getting the impression that the higher-ups want to avoid entangling the Agency any further with outside courts. Especially after the attack in November.”

  “More politics,” I said disgustedly.

  “Like I said, you can be as contemptuous as you want, but it affects you, too,” J.B. said. “They can’t avoid the fact that you’re the child of a fallen angel, but they can punish you if you step out of line.”

  “What are they going to do? Fire me?” I asked. “I’ve been looking for a way out of this crappy gig ever since I was fourteen.”

  “If you push them hard enough, they’ll send the Retrievers after you,” J.B. said.

  “Don’t tell me you believe that fairy tale about Agency bogeymen,” I scoffed.

  “It’s not a fairy tale,” J.B. said.

  I stared at him. “Are you trying to tell me there really is a superspecial team of assassins for Agents gone bad?”

  J.B. nodded. “And since you’ve already got plenty of enemies after you, let’s not give the CEO an excuse to sic the Retrievers on you.

  “So, the first thing is that you’ve got to pick up your workload again. I could get away with giving you a week off because you were grieving, but I can’t keep passing your soul pickups to other Agents. A few of them are already grumbling, and if the grumbles get too loud, it will attract attention.”

  “Okay,” I said. The last thing I felt like doing was escorting the souls of the dead, but I didn’t want J.B. to get any more grief than he was already getting.

  “And if you want Chloe to help you, it’s going to have to be on her off-hours.”

  “I think she’s been spending a lot of her off-hours time here, anyway,” I said, smiling.

  J.B. gave me a questioning look.

  “Apparently she’s been pursuing Samiel,” I said.

  J.B. blinked. “Really?”

  “Yes, very aggressively.”

  He smiled, and that smile transformed his face. He was under so much stress that I hardly ever saw him without knit brows and downward mouth.

  I was reminded of how handsome he was, and hard on the heels of that thought was the memory of Amarantha’s servant Violet pursuing J.B.

  He was king of the court now, and he probably had faeries throwing themselves at him to be the next queen. I felt a little jealous, and then I reminded myself that I was in no position to feel that way. I’d never considered J.B. as a lover, and even if I did, it would be impossible to avoid feeling like I was betraying Gabriel.

  My life was complicated enough.

  J.B. watched me very soberly, and I wondered how much of what I was thinking was evident on my face.

  Quite a bit, it seemed.

  “You know,” J.B. said carefully. “Someday you will stop missing him quite so much.”

  “I’ll never stop missing him no matter how much time has passed,” I said.

  “Okay,” he conceded. “But one day you might realize you don’t want to spend the rest of your life alone, or that maybe you’d like your baby to have a father.”

  “I don’t…” I started.

  J.B. held up his hands. “All I’m saying is when that day comes, whenever that day may be, please consider me.”

  I shook my head. “J.B. You can’t wait forever for the possibility that I might choose you.”

  “I’m hoping I won’t have to wait forever,” he said steadily.

  “I don’t deserve you,” I said.

  “Probably not,” he replied, and he put his hand over mine.

  Which was how Nathaniel found us when he knocked on the back door and walked in without waiting for an answer.

  7

  “EXCUSE ME,” NATHANIEL SAID TIGHTLY, TURNING BACK to the door.

  I felt guilty, and I didn’t know why, which made me angry. I pushed away from the table and stood.

  “What did you want?” I asked.

  Nathaniel paused at the door, not looking at me. “Only to see if you were well.”

  “I’m well,” I said. “And in the future, please wait for me to answer the door before coming in.”

  “I apologize. Everyone else is permitted to come and go. I presumed it would be acceptable for me to do as well.”

  “It’s not.”

  “I understand,” he said, and went out again.

  I slumped back into my chair, my adrenaline crashing.

  “Never mind the stress of being hunted by all and sundry. I may not survive the stress of having Nathaniel in the house,” I muttered.

  Beezle pushed the back door open and flew in. He gave an exaggerated double take when he saw my hair.

  “Speak and you die,” I said.

  “What?” Beezle said. “I was going to ask if you made an omelet for me.”

  “Really?” I said skeptically.

  “Well, no, I was going to say it looks like you took a hacksaw to your head, but I suspect such comments would be frowned upon in your current condition.”

  “You suspect correctly,” I said.

  J.B. stood up. “I’ll send Chloe to you tomorrow.”

  “Let me know if you overhear of any further plots on my life, will you?”

  J.B. nodded and left.

  I looked at Beezle. “I’m thinking we shouldn’t wait around to see what shows up at the door next.”

  “You want to confront Titania and Oberon?”

  “Good, you were eavesdropping so I don’t have to trouble myself to explain the situation,” I said.

  “Maddy,” Beezle said, and his little face was very grave. “I’ll admit that you’ve defied some pretty powerful beings in the past, and you’ve even managed to defeat most of them. But Titania and Oberon are on Lucifer’s level, and you haven’t managed to get the best of him yet.”

  “What do you know about them?” I said.

  “Nobody knows how old they are. They might be as old as Lucifer.”

  “Very ancient beings. Check,” I said.

  “They adore children but have only managed to have one of their own in all these millennia, so they are not above stealing someone else’s child.”

  “So I should avoid revealing my pregnancy to them for as long as possible.”

  “Oh, yeah. To steal a child of Lucifer’s line would be quite a coup for them.”

  “Have they been trying?” I asked.

  “Well, the difficulty comes from not knowing just who Lucifer’s been bonking,” Beezle said. “Remember what a surprise Baraqiel was?”

  “I wonder why the faerie king and queen have so much trouble conceiving while Lucifer seems able to father a child on pretty much anything.”

  “For some reason, faeries don’t seem to reproduce easily. But rumor has it that the only child of Titania and Oberon isn’t Oberon’s, if you know what I mean.”

  “The faerie king is shooting blanks?”<
br />
  “So some say.”

  “Where do you get these rumors from, anyway?” I asked. “It’s not like you leave the house unless you’re with me.”

  “I have a Facebook account, as you well know.”

  “You’re discussing the paternity of the faerie kingdom’s heir on Facebook?”

  “Just because you don’t know the value of social media doesn’t mean everyone is like that,” he said.

  “Then I want you to put your pastime to good use. See what else you can find out about Titania and Oberon.”

  “Are you looking for some specific information?” Beezle asked.

  “Yeah. I want to know their weaknesses.”

  “Besides the usual immortal flaws of vanity, jealousy and self-righteousness?”

  “Yes. Although those give me something to start with,” I said, thinking. “If there is any truth to the rumors about Oberon, then there’s some leverage there.”

  “Careful where you tread,” Beezle said.

  “I know. They would crush me just for implying their heir is not legitimate.”

  “It definitely hits Oberon’s pride. And Titania will apparently do anything to keep him happy.”

  “So they love each other, then?”

  “Not in the way you would think of love, probably, but yes, they do.”

  “And that’s something to work with, too,” I said. “Love is a weakness. If you care about someone, then you can be hurt.”

  Beezle looked at me. “Aren’t we ruthless?”

  “I know better than anyone how love can cut you to pieces.”

  “But love isn’t just pain,” he said, his eyes troubled. “Isn’t there happiness, too?”

  “Just enough to make the cut deeper when it comes,” I said.

  We both stared at the table, lost in our thoughts.

  “Let’s not brood,” I said, after a while. “Want to watch a movie with me? Something funny?”

  “Yeah, Night of the Living Dead.”

  “It’s funny to watch people get their guts eaten by zombies?”

  “It is if they’re too stupid to get away. Zombies shamble. You could escape them with a brisk walk and yet these idiots are getting overtaken all the time.”

  “It’s the number of zombies that’s the problem,” I said, “not the speed at which you attempt to escape.”