Black Heart

12

I CAME TO MY FEET SO SUDDENLY THAT BEEZLE LOST his balance and fell off my shoulder. He fluttered in an irritated way beside me. J.B. emerged from a shadow beside a tree farther down the street.

“J.B.?” I squinted my eyes at him. I’d been fooled by demons’ masks before. My hands curled into fists, and I readied my power.

He halted his approach, holding up his hands in a sign of surrender. The streetlight glinted off the metal rims of his glasses.

“Maddy, it’s me,” he said. “Don’t blast me into oblivion.”

Beezle gave J.B. a good hard stare. I knew he was checking all the layers of reality to make sure that it was actually my former boss standing there and not something pretending to be him. I felt acutely vulnerable standing near the ruins of my house, knowing that a threshold would keep me safe from those kinds of attacks. If it was a demon disguised as J.B. and I was in the house, all I would have to do was make sure not to invite him in. But without the threshold I’d have to engage in a fight with anything that wanted to have a go at me.

After a very long moment, Beezle said, “It’s him.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and started toward him, then stopped. The last time I’d seen J.B. we had said some very ugly things to each other. Yes, he had called me later and tried to warn me about the Retrievers, but the argument we had seemed to hang in the air, echoing in the space between us.

“Maddy,” he said, and I heard the hoarseness in his voice, could see the telltale gleam of unshed tears in his green eyes. “I thought you were dead.”

“How could you believe anything Sokolov would tell you?” I said. “You know he’s a liar. You know how much he hates me.”

J.B. took a tentative step toward me, shoved his hands in his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them.

“I thought he wouldn’t be able to lie about a death,” J.B. said. “It’s a bureaucracy. Paper is sacred. If it’s written on a piece of paper, then it must be true.”

I laughed, despite everything. “Not everyone is as honest as you.”

“I’m not even as honest as me,” J.B. said, referring to the argument we’d had on the beach. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about what the Agency knew of Lucifer and his plans.”

“You could have saved me a lot of grief,” I said.

“And myself, too,” J.B. said. “I mourned you.”

I almost unbent then, almost ran to him and embraced him. But there was an awkwardness between us that hadn’t been there before. It would take a long time to mend this tear.

“I am sorry you had to go through that,” I said, and despite everything, I was sorry. It’s a horrible thing to lose someone to death, and I knew that better than anyone. “How did you know that I was back?”

J.B. jerked a thumb in the direction of the downtown offices of the Agency. “Your uncle showed up.”

“What did he do?” I asked, a little afraid of the answer.

“He menaced,” J.B. said. “And then Sokolov invited him up to the boardroom to talk to certain members of upper management.”

I peered in the general direction of the offices. “Well, I haven’t seen a fireball exploding into the sky, so presumably he hasn’t blown the whole place up with everyone inside.”

“He’s going to make sure they call off the Retrievers,” J.B. said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” I said.

“How do you do it?” J.B. said. “How can you break every rule there ever was and get away with it?”

“First of all, I don’t break them on purpose. Second of all, I don’t get away with anything, believe me. Whatever I do, I always pay for it. Always.”

Silence fell again. Beezle cleared his throat significantly. “So, you were going to give us a place to sleep?”

J.B. looked like he’d dropped into deep thought, and he shook his head like he was coming out of a fog. “Uh, yeah. It’s going to be a little crowded with Nathaniel and Bendith there, too, but we’ll make it work.”

“You have Nathaniel and Bendith with you?” I asked. “How did that happen?”

“Nathaniel had nowhere to go once the house was burned down and we thought you were dead. He didn’t feel right returning to Lucifer’s court now that he’s been revealed as Puck’s son.”

“Yeah, that would not have been a good idea. Lucifer and Puck seem like they’re unreasonable about one another.”

“And then Bendith tracked Nathaniel down, because he left his mother’s court—”

“We know,” Beezle said in a bored voice.

“You do?”

“Beezle’s on Facebook,” I said. “So Bendith tracked down Nathaniel, and?”

“And he wanted to stay with his brother, and I didn’t have the heart to turn him away,” J.B. said. “Especially now that he’s more vulnerable away from Titania’s court.”

“Has he got fae assassins coming after him or something?”

“Yes, exactly,” J.B. said.

“I thought Titania wouldn’t kill her own child,” I said accusingly to Beezle.

“She wouldn’t,” Beezle said. “It’s got to be Titania’s enemies trying to punish her.”

“That’s what I think,” J.B. said. “But we’ve got him pretty well hidden. Right now they think he’s just disappeared into thin air.”

“How did you hide him?” I asked.

“It was some pretty nifty magic on Nathaniel’s part,” J.B. admitted. “Nathaniel combined his blood with Bendith’s and then used magic to disguise Bendith’s essence with his own. So if anyone tries to track Bendith magically, they’ll come up empty. The only power signature he exerts now is Nathaniel’s.”

“That is some powerful magic,” Beezle said. “And it’s a lot like what Michael the archangel did all those millennia ago, to disguise Lucifer’s children and his bloodline through Evangeline so thoroughly that even the Prince of Darkness himself would not be able to find them.”

“Nathaniel’s pretty frightening, actually,” J.B. said. “He’s got an unbelievable amount of power now. The only thing that’s holding him in check is you.”

“Me?” I said. “What have I got to do with it?”

“When someone they love dies, men respond in one of two ways. They smash everything in sight, or they break inside. Nathaniel broke. And if he hadn’t, there probably wouldn’t be a city for you to return to, because he could level Chicago with a look.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why would Nathaniel think I was dead? He sent me through the portal so I would be safe. He knew where I went.”

J.B. shook his head. “Actually, he didn’t know where you went. It seemed he was taking telepathic instructions from Puck and he wasn’t really thinking at the time. He assumed that Puck didn’t mean you harm, so he did what his father said. Then I came home with the news that Sokolov had been crowing about your death at work. Nathaniel believed you had died in the place where he sent you.”

“You know, I used to think you guys were smart,” I said. “And you’re both pretty powerful. So how did you get fooled by such a simple ruse?”

“Someone was making sure they were fooled,” Beezle said.

I nodded. “That’s what I think, too. And there’s only a few characters that have that kind of power.”

“Alerian, Daharan, Lucifer and Puck,” Beezle said. “Titania and Oberon. Probably a few others. But those are the usual suspects.”

“So we have to figure out why one of the usual suspects wanted everyone to think I was dead, and then went to the trouble of laying out a spell to make sure that nobody questioned it.”

“Welcome home to your newest conspiracy!” Beezle chirped.

“Someone wanted me out of the way,” I said.

“Lots of creatures want you out of the way,” J.B. said. “The trouble is narrowing it down.”

“Let’s see,” I said, tapping my finger on my chin. “Puck sent me to an alien world, and went to the trouble of making sure I stayed there to kill off an entire population. I vote for Puck.”

“Daharan was there, too,” Beezle reminded me. “Who’s to say he’s not in on the conspiracy?”

I shook my head. “Daharan wouldn’t do that to me.”

“How do you know?” J.B. asked.

“I know,” I said.

“Maddy . . .” J.B. began.

“No,” I said. “Don’t say that I’m being naïve, or that I just met him. I know.”

“Don’t argue with her,” Beezle stage-whispered. “She’s pregnant.”

“Pregnant doesn’t equal brain damaged,” I said. “Or deaf.”

“Puck could also be doing work for Titania,” J.B. pointed out. “He said he was acting of his own accord, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah, and Titania is highly motivated to get rid of you,” Beezle said. “Plus, the whole thing kind of has the feel of a faerie plot, doesn’t it? They’re always putting you in a new game board and watching to see if you get killed.”

“You think Titania told Puck to send me to that place, and Puck used Nathaniel as his vessel because my uncle knew I would trust him?”

“That’s faerie logic at work right there,” J.B. said. “Titania wants you dead, but she would prefer that the actual bloodletting be done by someone else.”

“And Puck tried to throw me off the scent by saying that Titania didn’t want him there, that she was planning on using the Cimice for mass destruction?”

Beezle nodded. “She probably wanted the Cimice dead for some queenly reason of her own and decided to use you to take care of them for her.”

“So, worst-case scenario—I kill off a bunch of her enemies. Best case—I kill off her enemies and die in the process,” I said.

“Sounds about right,” Beezle said.

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. “Something’s not fitting together here. I met one of the Cimice. It beheaded a woman right under the Southport El platform in the middle of the day and I chased it down and killed it. And before I killed it, it told me that it was the vanguard of millions and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”

“Maybe Titania was going to use them for something and changed her mind?” Beezle asked.

I put my hands over my ears. “Enough. Enough guessing. We have too few facts to work with here. The Cimice are dead. I’m not. That much is true. I don’t know who was actually responsible for sending me to that place, but I’m not even sure it matters at this point.”

“It matters if your actions there started knocking down a chain of dominoes and we’re going to feel the effects of it later,” J.B. said.

“Should I confront Puck directly and demand that he not lie to me? That will be really productive, I’m sure.”

J.B. took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You’re right. There’s no point in going over and over it right now. You two come back to my place and get some sleep. Maybe Nathaniel or Bendith will have some insight.”

J.B. pushed out his wings. Beezle landed on my shoulder. I glanced around quickly before I took off.

“I was keeping an eye out for him,” Beezle said under his breath as I followed J.B. into the sky. He flew a little ahead of us, like he wanted some time to think, and I let him go. “Jack didn’t come after us once you’d threatened him, and he was nowhere nearby when we were talking.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I was so surprised to see J.B. that I forgot where we were—again. We have to stop having important conversations in the middle of the street. A regular human might have called the cops if they heard us discussing murder and mayhem.”

“Especially since you look weird,” Beezle said.

“Your tact is overwhelming,” I said.

“I don’t mean your face is weird or whatever,” Beezle said impatiently. “It’s your wings. You spent so much of your life as an Agent with the ability to tuck them away when you wanted to blend in. You don’t have that now. And I think that you keep forgetting that your wings are visible all the time now.”

“I do keep forgetting,” I admitted. “I keep forgetting that I’ve changed.”

I put my hand over my belly. What was going to happen when Titania discovered I was pregnant? Or Amarantha? Even as a ghost she’d displayed an uncanny knack for causing trouble, and she’d worked with my enemies before. There was no hiding the baby now. I wasn’t completely sure how big a normal woman’s belly was at three months, but mine looked bigger than it was supposed to be.

“Beezle,” I said. “Was my mom’s stomach this big when she was three months pregnant with me?”

“No way,” Beezle said vehemently. “Either your kid is really big-boned or he’s growing faster than normal.”

“How much faster, do you think?” I asked in a small voice.

“I don’t know,” Beezle said. “Why?”

“I’m not ready to deliver this baby,” I said.

“Most women feel that way,” Beezle said. “Giving birth is a scary thing.”

“I’m not scared of the process,” I said. “I’m scared of what’s going to happen after the baby is born. He’s going to be much more vulnerable. How will I keep him safe?”

Beezle put his little hand on my cheek. “I don’t know how you’ll do it. But I know that you will.”

I nodded, unable to speak. I would do whatever it took to keep my child safe. Of that, I was sure. But would “whatever it took” be enough? Titania, in particular, would love to take my baby from me and raise it as her own. Faeries are crazy about human babies. You only had to read a few old folktales to know that. And for her to take a baby of Lucifer’s line would be an unprecedented coup.

Of course, Lucifer would be unable to allow such an insult to pass. And then he would have to go after Titania. There would be a war, and my child could be killed in the cross fire. But Lucifer’s pride would be satisfied.

I shook my head to try to clear away such thoughts. My baby wasn’t born yet. He hadn’t been stolen away. He was still safe and snug inside me. I just had to make sure that I didn’t get killed.

That was a tall order these days.

I was so caught up in my own worries that I didn’t notice where we were until Beezle nudged me in the side of my neck with his elbow.

“What?” I asked.

“Don’t you want to go with J.B.?” Beezle asked.

I saw J.B. descending toward the sidewalk in front of his building in the Loop. He lived in a condo in Printers Row, a short distance from Agency headquarters. It was a nice little area bordered by some slightly sketchy streets. Like a lot of places in Chicago, the haves rubbed right up against the have-nots.

“Veil your wings,” J.B. called.

“Right,” I said, and did so.

J.B. aimed for a shadowy spot on the street, away from foot traffic, which was fairly sparse this time of night.

“I could eat a horse,” Beezle said as we touched the sidewalk.

“You just ate,” I said. “You haven’t even given your body a chance to digest that pizza yet.”

“Yeah, but Hackney’s is right over there,” Beezle said, pointing toward the next street. “I can smell the burgers.”

J.B. punched a key code in at the front door of his building and held the door open for us. He automatically checked his mailbox on the way in, collecting a couple of envelopes and throwing the catalogs into a small wastebasket underneath the boxes.

He started up the stairs to the fourth floor.

“Stairs?” Beezle said. “No elevator?”

“I don’t know why you’re complaining,” I said. “You’ve never walked up a set of stairs in your life. You’ve always been carried.”

“It’s psychological pain,” Beezle said. “It’s hard for me to watch you expend that much energy.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

J.B. paused when he reached the door. “I wonder if I should send you outside, and then send him out.”

I cocked my head to one side. “Why?” I asked.

“Because I don’t know how he’s going to react, and I would hate for my condo to be destroyed.”

It was kind of weird standing there with J.B. like this, with him more or less acknowledging that Nathaniel was my boyfriend. Which he was, and he wasn’t. And it was even weirder that the two romantic rivals had been sharing the same living quarters for the last few months.

I started to speak, to tell J.B. that maybe it was best if Nathaniel and I went outside anyway, as I wasn’t particularly interested in an audience for our reunion. But the front door flew open, and Nathaniel stood there.

I remembered the first time I met Nathaniel, standing in the doorway of my father’s ballroom. He was golden and arrogant and perfect, and I’d hated him on sight.

Now he was silhouetted in another doorway, his hair dark instead of gold, his eyes no longer icy blue but the same jewel-bright shade as Puck’s. Instead of looking polished and tailored, he wore a flannel shirt and jeans that looked like they were falling off his frame.

I didn’t hate him anymore. I wasn’t sure what I felt for Nathaniel. That had been the problem we’d had before I left, before he thought I died. But I was happy to see him. That, I couldn’t deny.

He was thinner, a lot thinner, and he looked tired. But he saw me, and his eyes blazed.

Beezle flew off my shoulder to J.B.’s. “Umm, we’ll just . . . get out of your way.”

Nathaniel stepped into the hallway. His feet were bare, but he never hesitated, his eyes never leaving my face. J.B. and Beezle slipped into the apartment behind Nathaniel and quietly closed the door.

I stood still, and I waited. My insides were all jumbled up, in need and confusion. This was what he did to me.

He put his hands on my face, like a blind man, feeling my cheeks, my nose, my eyebrows.

“You’re alive,” he said.

I nodded. I wanted to crack a joke to lighten the tension, but I couldn’t be flippant in the face of his emotion. He’d thought I died, and it was just sinking in now that I hadn’t, that the last few months of grief need never have been.

“You’re alive,” he repeated.

And then his mouth was on mine, devouring, almost punishing. It was like he was trying to crawl inside me, trying to breathe the same air I was breathing. He was marking me, claiming me as his.

I was breathless, and he was relentless, and I welcomed it. And then I remembered Gabriel. My lust turned to confusion. Gabriel was dead. I was alive.

But he was watching me. He’d said so.

“Nathaniel,” I tried to say, but it came out a jumble of syllables.

He kept kissing me, like he couldn’t stop, like an addict reunited with his drug of choice.

I pushed at his shoulders, and he finally got the message. He pulled away from my mouth, leaned his forehead against mine, looking into my eyes.

“I thought you were dead,” he said. “Sokolov told J.B. you were dead.”

“I know,” I said soothingly, taking his hands in mine. This wasn’t the time for a heart-to-heart about Gabriel, or the future of my relationship with Nathaniel.

But I was going to have to make some kind of decision soon. Would I continue to live in the past, with the memory of Gabriel? Or would I let Nathaniel in?

“Sokolov told us you were dead,” Nathaniel repeated.

The air around him seemed to change, to crackle with electricity. His hands dropped away from mine and curled into fists.

“I will tear him to pieces,” Nathaniel said, and when he spoke he didn’t sound like Nathaniel anymore.

He sounded like Lucifer when he was in Prince of Darkness mode. He sounded like something not of this earth, something not human at all—which he wasn’t. He was the son of Puck and an angel of the host, and there wasn’t a drop of humanity inside to temper his rage.

“Nathaniel, don’t,” I said, grabbing his shoulders. His fury was a palpable thing, heat pouring from his body. “Don’t make it worse than it already is. If you kill Sokolov, the Agency will not be able to ignore you anymore. They’ll come for you.”

“Let them come,” Nathaniel said. “I will destroy them all.”

“Nathaniel,” I said, my hands on his face, trying to draw him back to me. “Don’t bring grief upon yourself for my sake. I’m here. I’m alive.”

“I would do anything for your sake, Madeline,” Nathaniel said. His jewel-blue eyes burned. “I would slaughter a thousand enemies for you. I would tear the sun from the sky for you. I would defy the laws of the universe, reorder the galaxies, stand against Lucifer and his brothers in defiance, if that was what it took to keep you safe. I will not lose you again. I will not.”

“You won’t,” I said. “You won’t.”

“You cannot make such a guarantee,” Nathaniel said.

“Neither can you,” I said softly. “Death comes for us all.”

I kept my hands on his face, my eyes on his eyes. “Nathaniel. For me. Do not do this, because I am asking you not to.”

“Madeline,” he said, and his voice broke. The heat of his anger receded a little. “Do not ask me to lay aside my vengeance. They deserve to suffer. They hounded you and harried you and sent the Retrievers to take you.”

“But you saved me,” I said, and kissed him very gently. “You sent me away. You saved me.”

“I thought I had killed you,” he said, and one single tear fell. “I wanted only to keep you safe, and I thought I had sent you to your doom.”

“You didn’t,” I said. “I survived. I always do.”

“And you truly do not wish me to take vengeance upon Sokolov for your suffering? He is responsible. He should pay.”

His eyes searched mine. I knew he wanted me to let him loose upon the Agency, but I couldn’t do it.

“Someday someone might have to take care of Sokolov,” I acknowledged. “But not today.”

“I would feel better if you would let me smite him,” Nathaniel said sulkily.

I laughed. He looked like a toddler who’d just been denied a trip to the candy store. “I know it would be satisfying to break him into little pieces, but no.”

“I will respect your wishes, Madeline,” Nathaniel said. “For now. But know this—Sokolov will receive no more chances from me.”

I understood what Nathaniel was saying. The next time Sokolov tried anything, Nathaniel would grind him up and spit him out.

And no amount of affection for me would stop Nathaniel again.