Black Lament

by Christina Henry

  “Temper, temper,” Puck said, rising from the bed and approaching me. “That attitude of yours will get you into trouble.”

  “It already does,” I said shortly. “Now tell me why you’re here and how you got into the house without waking Jude and Beezle, or so help me I’ll—”

  “You have my jewel,” Puck said, nodding at the blue sapphire he’d given us for safe passage. “I can come and go wherever it is.”

  I grabbed it off my dresser and held it out to him. “Take it back, then. I don’t want to wake up to find you impersonating my husband again. Is that how you got the queen pregnant? By pretending to be Oberon?”

  Puck nodded. “It helped them maintain the fiction they needed—that Titania had been loyal to him, and that he had sired a child.”

  “Does she know that it was you, and not him?”

  He shrugged. “It is not what she knows, but what she will admit to herself.”

  “Why can’t you just answer a question in a straightforward manner?”

  “Now, what is the fun in that?”

  He still hadn’t taken the jewel from me. I waved it in front of him. “Take it back.”

  “I’d rather not,” Puck said. “I might want to visit with you again.”

  “If you don’t take it with you, I’ll throw it in the garbage can, and next time you come through you’ll find yourself caressing rats at the city dump.”

  “I think you’ll find that if you throw it away, it will return to you,” he said with a small smile.

  I dropped my hand at my side. “What do you want from me?”

  Puck wandered around the room, picking up things here and there—the book on my bedside table that I never had time to read, some little silver knickknacks that had belonged to my mother, the plastic hairbrush that Gabriel had used to comb my hair on our wedding night. “I may want to ask a favor of you sometime in the future.”

  “Really,” I said flatly.

  He looked up at me, a gleam in his eyes. “Is a favor so much to ask, after I aided you in court?”

  “It is a lot to ask if I don’t know what the favor is,” I said. “And I was under the impression that you helped me out for reasons of your own.”

  “What would you say if I told you those reasons included wanting you indebted to me?” Puck said.

  I closed my eyes. “I’d say that I should have known better than to expect a faerie to help me out of the goodness of his heart.”

  “Yes, you should have,” he said.

  “Just who are you, anyway?” I asked. “You seem to have a lot of power in that court.”

  The air shimmered for a moment, and Puck disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the room.

  “I am the voice that dances on the wind,” he said.

  “Very poetic.”

  He turned in a circle and threw out a shower of gold sparks. When he stopped he looked like Oberon had before I’d diminished him.

  “I am the beating heart of the earth,” he said.

  He held out his hand and there was a puff of blue smoke that covered him before he reappeared as himself. He seemed more serious as he approached me; the merry light that always danced in his eyes was gone.

  “I am older than this earth, older than the stars. I saw Titania and Oberon born. I have walked all the ways of the universe, the hidden paths known only to a few.”

  He stopped in front of me, and put his hands on my shoulders. “And I have counted Lucifer as my enemy since time untold.”

  “You are not a faerie,” I said, my heart trembling.

  He shook his head. “No. I am not. And I find you, Madeline Black, very interesting.”

  For just a moment, I thought I saw the shadow of wings behind him. Then he winked, and disappeared.

  I sank onto the bed and stared at the jewel in my hand, the jewel that had purchased my safe passage and that now bound me to some ancient creature that despised Lucifer.

  It glittered in the light of the ball of nightfire that floated aimlessly in the room. The glittering reminded me too much of Puck’s eyes, and I stuffed the jewel in the drawer of my bedside table.

  I glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes past five in the evening. The darkness outside made it seem much later. I went out into the hall and down to the living room.

  Samiel, Jude and Beezle looked like a guy cliché, all three of them ensconced on the couch. Samiel and Jude had their shoes off and their feet propped on my coffee table. Beezle sat in between them. On either side of my gargoyle was a plastic bowl filled with junk food. One bowl had popcorn, and the other had potato chips.

  Beezle looked like he’d found heaven. I heard the sounds of gunfire coming from the TV.

  “Aliens?” I asked.

  “I love this movie,” Beezle said.

  “Shh,” Jude said. “I’ve never seen it before.”

  Samiel had looked up when I entered the room, and with his usual perception he realized something was going on.

  What’s wrong?

  “I hate to interrupt your party, but Puck’s just been to see me and I thought you’d want to know that there’s a hole in our security.”

  “What?” Jude asked.

  Beezle paused the movie with the remote. “Puck was here?”

  I told them that Puck had appeared in my room because of the jewel. I didn’t mention that he’d appeared in the form of my dead husband and that he’d groped me.

  I realized I was trembling all over. Puck had violated me. He had burrowed into my memory of Gabriel, had stolen the intimacy that we’d shared, an intimacy I’d never shared with anyone else.

  Samiel was at my side in an instant, his arm around me. What did he do to you?

  I shook my head. I couldn’t tell them. “Nothing,” I said through chattering teeth. “I’m just c-c-cold. Can you get me a blanket?”

  Samiel looked like he wanted to push it, but decided not to. He led me toward a chair and covered me with a crocheted afghan.

  I’ll get some tea, he said.

  “We need to get rid of that jewel,” Jude said.

  “I already tried that,” I said, still shaking. “I was told that it wouldn’t have much effect.”

  “So we just have to accept that he can come and go as he pleases in this house?” Jude said angrily.

  There was a knock at the back door, and I heard Samiel letting Nathaniel in the kitchen. Nathaniel entered the room, followed by Samiel carrying my tea.

  “All you all right?” Nathaniel asked. He looked harried. “I felt the presence of something unnatural here, but I couldn’t get upstairs to you.”

  “You felt Puck?” I asked, interested.

  “You know, it’s funny,” Beezle said, shoving potato chips in his mouth. “We decided to watch the movie maybe fifteen minutes before you came out. We all had the same impulse simultaneously.”

  And we didn’t even argue about what movie to watch, Samiel added.

  “So Puck managed to neutralize all of you so that you couldn’t help me if I needed it,” I said. “You three didn’t seem to be aware of him at all. Nathaniel knew he was here but wasn’t able to help. How did he keep you downstairs?”

  “Every time I tried to walk to the stairs, go out the front door or fly out a window, I felt some force turning me away,” Nathaniel said. “It was maddening.”

  “I wonder why you could feel him and the others couldn’t,” I said thoughtfully. “You don’t have faerie in your blood, do you? I can usually feel Lucifer when he’s approaching.”

  Nathaniel drew himself up haughtily. “I am the only child of two first-generation angels.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I wasn’t casting aspersions on your character. Just curious.”

  Beezle looked curious, too, but he didn’t pursue it. No use getting Nathaniel annoyed over nothing.

  “Puck as good as told me that if I tried to throw away the stone, it would come back to me,” I said. “But there has to be some way to prohibit him from entering
without permission.”

  Beezle tapped his chin. “He got around the threshold rule by giving you the jewel in the first place. That implied permission when you accepted it, even if you didn’t realize it.”

  “Faeries love loopholes,” I muttered.

  “And so do fallen angels,” Nathaniel said. “We cannot get rid of the jewel, and we cannot prevent Puck from entering the house, but we can bind the stone in such a way that it will imprison Puck when he enters.”

  “I don’t want to imprison him,” I said, thinking of Puck’s speech about his origins. I wasn’t up to making any creature that old angry with me.

  “Not imprison forever,” Nathaniel said. “He would be able to return easily to his own realm. But he would not be able to enter your home and walk about freely. He would be confined to one space unless you gave him express permission otherwise.”

  I nodded. “Like a holding cell. I like it. How can we do it?”

  “First decide where you would like to place the jewel,” Nathaniel said.

  “As far from Madeline as possible,” Jude growled. “The basement. Or the shed outside.”

  “That’s not going to work,” I said. “I want to know when he’s here. It should be someplace visible to anyone who comes through, like in this room.”

  “You want Puck popping up when we’re in the middle of dinner?” Beezle asked.

  “It’s better than him showing up in my bedroom when I’m asleep,” I said.

  “Very well,” Nathaniel said. “Bring me the jewel and I will perform the binding.”

  I started to stand, realized my legs were still shaky, and sat down again.

  “It’s in the drawer of my bedside table,” I told Samiel.

  Samiel disappeared for a few minutes, then reappeared, shaking his head.

  It wasn’t there. Did you put it somewhere else?

  “I just put it there a half hour ago,” I said. “Where did it go?”

  I pushed to my feet, and Jude came to support me so I wouldn’t fall. “Let me look.”

  Jude and I led the parade down the hall to my bedroom, where I was forced to suffer the indignity of everyone pawing through my belongings looking for the stone.

  “It’s not here,” I said finally, sitting on the bed in defeat.

  “Puck must have enspelled it to make sure that we couldn’t change the terms of the magic,” Nathaniel said.

  “That sneaky little so-and-so,” I said.

  “I guess he knows more about loopholes than you do,” Beezle said to Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel glared at Beezle, but said nothing.

  “Okay, so we can’t solve the Puck problem right now,” I said.

  “What problem can we solve now?” Beezle asked. “We still don’t know where Azazel is or what he’s up to. You’ve really ticked off Titania, and the solution for that issue doesn’t seem to be in sight. You forgot your pickup this morning and lost the soul from yesterday. I think the only thing you can do right now is go into work and fill out forms that express your incompetence as an Agent.”

  “Why is it that when you speak a feeling of hopelessness descends upon me?” I asked. “Has Chloe been around here lately?”

  Samiel shook his head. I haven’t seen her since she left yesterday with the binder.

  “Hopefully she’s working on deciphering it,” I said. “I’ll call J.B. and see if he knows anything.”

  I dialed J.B. and waited while the phone rang. Everyone watched me.

  “Don’t the rest of you have something to do?” I asked.

  “No,” Beezle said. “Your life is our life.”

  “Maddy,” J.B. said as he picked up the phone. He sounded worried. “I was just going to call you.”

  “Why?” I said, a feeling of dread coming over me. “What’s after me now?”

  “It’s not that,” J.B. said. “Something’s happened. I need you to meet me downtown.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “One fifty South Wacker,” he said. “There’s a plaza between two big office buildings there. You’ll have to leave Jude at home. You need to come under a cloak so no one sees you.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said.

  Jude was already shaking his head. He’d heard every word of the conversation. Wolf hearing is incredible.

  “You’re not going alone,” he said.

  “I don’t have to,” I replied. “Samiel can go with me.”

  “Or I can,” Nathaniel said.

  “Samiel can go with me,” I repeated. I didn’t want to be alone with Nathaniel right now. I wanted to be with someone I was sure I could trust. I was still feeling a little unsteady after my encounter with Puck, and I hadn’t even had time to contemplate the implications of my dream of Gabriel. “He can fly and he knows how to cloak himself. The rest of you stay here.”

  “And do what?” Jude said. “Twiddle our thumbs?”

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure something will show up to attack me sooner or later, and you can destroy it if I’m away.”

  “I don’t want to destroy things,” Jude growled. “I’m here to keep you safe.”

  “And you do,” I said. “I feel much safer knowing that you are here.”

  I didn’t say that the reason I felt safer was because Nathaniel was hanging around the house and I knew Jude would take care of him if necessary, but I didn’t have to. Everyone seemed to know this without my saying it aloud.

  Nathaniel’s face hardened. “Since I do not seem to be needed or wanted, I will return to my room and await your further instructions.”

  “You do that,” Beezle said.

  Nathaniel went out of my room and into the kitchen. He slammed the back door so hard that I heard it bounce off the frame.

  “And that’s another problem you can’t solve,” Beezle said.

  “Don’t remind me,” I said. “You stay here, too.”

  “Aww,” Beezle whined. “But I want to see what J.B.’s being all secretive about.”

  “You’ll find out when I get home,” I said. “My life is your life, remember?”

  “But it’s so much more fun when I can actually be there instead of experiencing things vicariously,” Beezle said.

  “Look at it this way. If you stay, you can finish off the potato chips before Samiel comes home and gets a crack at them.”

  “Good point,” Beezle said.

  Fifteen minutes later Samiel and I were on our way downtown under a veil. The few stars that were visible through the ambient light of the city shone in the dark sky. Cars moved below us as people headed home after work along Lake Shore Drive.

  We cut across the Loop, following the curve from East Wacker to South Wacker Drive, which was presently a big pit instead of a working road. It seemed like it had been under construction forever and there was no sign of completion in sight. There were detour signs everywhere and snarled traffic as drivers, cabs and cyclists tried to negotiate the limited options left available to them.

  The address that J.B. had given us was on the east side of the Chicago River. As we approached I saw that Adams had been closed off to traffic by several police cars, their lights flashing. There were a lot of ambulances, and a large crowd of curiosity seekers strained to see over the yellow crime scene tape that had been run across the entrance to the plaza.

  Samiel and I lowered carefully to the ground inside the tape and looked around for J.B. We didn’t have to look far. He was standing in the center of the plaza, surrounded by bodies.

  They were everywhere—men and women, mostly wearing the business suits that marked them as white-collar workers. Their limbs were broken; their heads were twisted the wrong way. And every single one of them had their neck torn open. There was an unbelievable amount of blood.

  Briefcases and laptop bags had broken open and papers were strewn across the plaza, blowing in the wind. Uniformed officers and EMTs stood in little clumps, waiting for the crime scene techs to finish their work. It seemed like they would be wait
ing a long time.

  I felt sick as I approached J.B. Whatever had done this had slaughtered these people without mercy.

  J.B. had his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, and he wore earmuffs in concession to the bitter cold. He looked sadder than I’d ever seen him. His shoulders were slumped, like he was carrying a heavy weight, and his face was tight with stress. His wings curled around him, like he was trying to comfort himself.

  “What happened?” I asked, putting my arm around him.

  “Vampires,” he said briefly.

  I gazed around in shock. “Vampires? Out in the open like this?”

  He nodded. “They were waiting at five o’clock when most of the people who work in these buildings were leaving. The early sundown worked to their advantage. We knew that something big was going to happen, but not exactly what. There were Agents here to collect the souls, and they saw the whole thing.”

  “The prophets knew that the vampires were going to massacre all these people and they didn’t do anything? They didn’t warn the Agents?” I asked.

  “Don’t act like you don’t know the rules,” J.B. said. “The deaths were foreseen. We were bound not to interfere.”

  I looked around at the piles of twisted, broken forms. “That’s BS, and you know it.”

  “How are these deaths any different from any others?” J.B. said impatiently. “What gives you the right to decide what deaths are right and which are wrong?”

  “Because these aren’t normal human deaths,” I said. “They were killed by something they couldn’t understand, and had no defense against.”

  “People have been killed by vampires before,” J.B. said.

  “Not like this,” I said.

  “So the number of people killed is what matters?”

  “No,” I said. “Why are you picking a fight with me? You know that the Agency is wrong. You know that the prophets shouldn’t have sent the Agents here without warning them.”

  J.B. turned his head away, but not before I saw the glitter of tears behind his glasses. “You’re right. They should have warned them. Maybe they wouldn’t have been so unprepared when…”

  “What else happened?” I asked.

  “Only some of the Agents returned,” J.B. said.

  “Agents were killed, too?” I asked, a cold ball of dread forming in my stomach.