Black Heart

13

I HAD TO MAKE PEACE WITH THIS. IT WASN’T THAT I necessarily objected to removing Sokolov. He had tortured J.B. He had sent Bryson after me and Nathaniel, and we’d been shot out of the sky and nearly killed. He’d sicced the Retrievers on me and caused me a lot of grief generally.

And I wasn’t that bothered by one more death. Maybe that was a dark-side thought, but it was true. Especially the death of someone who had worked very hard to make himself my enemy.

I didn’t want Nathaniel to incur the wrath of the Agency. I didn’t want him to be hunted as I was.

But I also couldn’t ask him to sit by over and over and watch the woman he cared about suffer at Sokolov’s hands.

So I had to make peace with this. Nathaniel would not be leashed by me again, and I couldn’t ask him to be.

He watched me expectantly, waiting for my answer.

“I understand,” I said finally.

“Good,” he said, and kissed me again. It was a warmer kiss, full of promise, and when it was over he took my hand. “Now you can come inside and tell me what has happened to you.”

“And you can tell me what’s happened to you,” I said. “You look like you haven’t eaten a thing since I left.”

“You are also thinner,” Nathaniel said.

“But I was on an alien planet and I didn’t know what food was edible,” I said.

Nathaniel shrugged. “Eating was not a priority.”

“It was for me,” I said. “But I thought I was only gone for a few days, not three months.”

Nathaniel pushed open the front door. Bendith, J.B. and Beezle were seated around a coffee table, arguing over something. I realized in that moment that I had never been inside J.B.’s condo. He had been in my house a ton of times, but I’d never seen his living space.

It was more or less what I would have expected of J.B. Color was pretty much nonexistent—everything was gray or black. Wall-to-wall carpeting was gray. A galley kitchen opened into a wide living/dining area, with a hallway leading off behind the living room, presumably toward bedrooms. The kitchen was pristine, and looked like it had never been used.

Tall windows on the opposite side of the front door were covered by dark gray shades that completely blocked out any ambient light from the street. There were tall lamps set at intervals around the room. The dining room had a square table made of something shiny and black, surrounded by four chairs.

The living area was arranged in a perfect rectangle, with a sofa on one side, two chairs divided by an end table on the other and the coffee table in the center.

There were no photographs, throw blankets, flowers, books, or anything personal of any kind. It looked like a show floor at Crate and Barrel, except with less warmth.

It was kind of shocking to think that three men had been living in the space. I would have expected a spare sock on the floor or a dirty cereal bowl in the sink, at least. There was nothing. Just a perfectly perfect, almost inhuman space.

Bendith and J.B. sat on the couch a few feet apart, and Beezle was perched on the coffee table, which looked like it was made of the same stuff as the shiny laptops in the window at the Apple store. I realized that Beezle was standing in front of a stack of take-out menus, and that the argument was about whether or not to order food.

“Maddy said you just ate,” J.B. said. “You’re not going to get me in trouble.”

Bendith had looked up when we walked in. I saw his eyes lock on Nathaniel, like a child who was waiting for his parent to come home. He glanced at our joined hands uncertainly.

I knew that Bendith was very attached to Nathaniel. Bendith and I had not had positive interactions in the past. He, like so many people I knew, had tried to kill me. He had to be wondering about his welcome now that I’d returned. But I wasn’t going to bring it up unless he did. I had enough uncomfortable personal conversations looming on my horizon.

Nathaniel shut the door quietly behind us. I dropped his hand and crossed my arms, glaring at Beezle.

“I told you that you don’t need any more food. You just had pizza. We are not getting takeout.”

“Other people might be hungry,” Beezle said. “Bendith said he would eat if we ordered Chinese.”

I looked at Bendith, who shrugged. “Fae have large appetites.”

“If Bendith wants food, he can have some,” I said to Beezle. “But you’re not getting any.”

I rubbed my forehead, abruptly tired. I’d been through the wringer today. “Look, J.B., is there somewhere I can lie down?”

He got to his feet, immediately solicitous. “I’ll put you in the spare bedroom. Just give me a second to change the sheets.”

Nathaniel led me to one of the empty chairs. “Have you overexerted yourself again today?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking,” I said.

But I had been reunited with my dead husband, and then taken away from him again. And then I’d returned home to find out three months had passed and my house was gone.

All in all, it had been an emotionally stressful day, if not a physical one.

“Where shall we sleep if Madeline is going in the spare bedroom?” Bendith asked.

Nathaniel looked surprised that Bendith would show such poor manners by asking the question in front of me. He frowned at his brother.

“I am certain that appropriate arrangements will be made for everyone,” Nathaniel said with a finality that indicated the subject was closed.

Bendith muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear, but Nathaniel could. He’d gotten super hearing when he had come into his legacy from Puck.

His disapproving frown changed to thunderous anger in an instant. “Apologize to Madeline.”

Bendith gave his brother a truculent look. “She didn’t hear me.”

“But I did,” Nathaniel said.

“Sorry,” Bendith said to me. He didn’t sound like he was sorry at all.

“Accepted,” I said quickly, before Nathaniel could make a bigger deal out of the situation.

Bendith was acting like a brat, but it wasn’t surprising. He was the only son of a Faerie queen who had likely cherished him beyond belief, and therefore spoiled him. And the fae, despite their endless age, seem more immature than most supernatural folk. Except for J.B., but then, he was half-human.

J.B. emerged from the hallway and beckoned me toward him. Nathaniel helped me to my feet.

“I’m okay,” I said gently.

He kissed my forehead and sent me on my way. I’d half expected he would follow me, or at least help me to the room. But he apparently wanted a further word with Bendith out of my hearing.

J.B. raised a brow questioningly as I joined him. I shook my head.

Not now, I mouthed.

I followed him down the gray-carpeted hallway. There were two closed doors on either side.

“That one’s mine,” he said, pointing to the right.

He opened the other door and showed me into another drab room. The comforter was black; the sheets were gray. More gray window shades covered the windows.

“Jeez, J.B. Who decorated this place? A prison warden?”

“I like black and gray,” he said.

“Can’t you at least open the window shades? It would be nice to have some ambient light,” I said, sitting on the bed.

“Not unless you want to see Amarantha looming over you all night long,” J.B. said. “She has a horrible habit of hanging outside the window and screaming like a banshee if she can see you asleep inside.”

“She’s still hanging around doing that?” I asked. “I’d have thought she’d have run off with her tail between her legs after I blasted her out of your bloodstream.”

It was the wrong thing to say. It reminded both of us that things weren’t exactly right. Amarantha had possessed J.B., had nearly stopped his heart from the inside. I’d saved him, but in the aftermath we’d argued. And he’d left.

“Uh, yeah,” J.B. said, trying to cover the awkward silence. “She disappeared for a while, but now she’s back again.”

“Has she seen Bendith?” I asked.

If she had, then no amount of magic could hide Titania’s son from his enemies. Amarantha would report straight to whoever would listen. They wouldn’t need a spell to track Bendith down. They could just lie in wait outside J.B.’s front door.

J.B. shook his head. “We’ve been careful. Bendith’s been veiled whenever he leaves the building, and the shades are drawn whenever we’re inside.”

“Are you sure?” I persisted.

“Nobody suspects he’s here,” J.B. said reassuringly.

“But she might have seen me arrive,” I said. I stood up and swayed a little as blood rushed to my head. “I can’t stay here. I’m putting you in danger.”

“Maddy, you’re practically dead on your feet. You have nowhere else to go. Just calm down,” J.B. said. “I’m sure you’ll be safe here for one night.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. “Fine,” I said. “One night.”

J.B. looked like he wanted to argue further, to ask where I was going to go tomorrow. But he didn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said instead, and left the room.

I undressed down to my T-shirt and underpants and crawled under the sheets. It felt unbelievably luxurious to be in a real bed, with real pillows and a real mattress, especially after sleeping in a tree branch, on a platform exposed to the elements, on a beach, and in a sling while flying through the air carried by a dragon.

I passed out immediately. At some point in the night another warm body slid in beside me. I woke briefly as Nathaniel put his arm around my waist and spooned up against me, his breath in my hair. Then I slept again.

I was dreaming. In my dream, something exploded. It seemed muffled and far away. A woman was screaming. I could smell smoke. Nathaniel was shaking me, his voice urgent.

“Wake up!” he said.

I was in his arms, the air cold on my bare legs, and he was carrying me to the window.

“What’s happening?” I asked, still groggy.

“Somebody bombed the building. It could come crashing down anytime,” Nathaniel shouted. As if to illustrate his point, several chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling.

“Beezle,” I said. “I won’t go without him.”

“He’s with J.B.,” Nathaniel said. “They had to get Bendith. He can’t fly.”

Nathaniel gave the window a good hard glare. The shade flew up, the glass exploded outward and the warm spring air came in. Nathaniel flew outside just in time. I could hear the building shaking on its foundation. I was reminded of the mountain crashing down on the Cimice, burying the evidence of the massacre I’d created.

It was still dark out. I was surprised. It seemed like I’d slept for a long time. But the clock on the bank down the street told me I’d been out for only a couple of hours.

Nathaniel stopped in the air and turned around. J.B. was right behind us, carrying Bendith under the shoulders. Beezle was perched on J.B.’s shoulder.

Nathaniel muttered something. I felt a veil drop over all of us. In that small spell I could feel the strength of Nathaniel’s power now, how much he’d changed in the time that had passed. J.B. was right. Nathaniel could level the city with a look if he wanted.

And that meant that if he decided to do something like that, I was the only person around with power enough to try to stop him. Emphasis here on “try,” because while I had a pretty big repository of power, I had only the smallest fraction of Nathaniel’s skill. I had a lot of magic, but I couldn’t access it with ease the way he could.

We floated down to the street. It was a good thing we were under a veil. Nathaniel was wearing nothing but pajama pants, and I was the next-best thing to naked. Bendith looked like his pride was smarting from being carried. He pulled away from J.B. as soon as his feet touched the ground.

The window Nathaniel had broken for our escape was on the back of the building, so we were standing in the alley and had no way of knowing what was happening in front. Smoke poured from the lower windows, and I could hear things crashing inside. Sirens blared, approaching fast.

“Do you think everyone got out of the building?” I asked. Nathaniel was still holding me. Normally I would feel resentful of this, but at the moment I was happy that I wasn’t walking in the alley muck in my bare feet, as he was.

“We have to check,” I said.

“No,” Nathaniel said. “We have to get you away from here as quickly as possible.”

“So you think this is because of me?” I asked.

“No one tried to blow up the building until you were in it,” J.B. said.

“I told you that it wasn’t safe for me to be there,” I said.

“I thought we could get through one night,” J.B. said. “But someone must have seen you go into the building with me.”

“Who, though?” I asked. “And where are they?”

Nathaniel frowned. “You’re right. If this was a plot to drive you out into the open, where you would be vulnerable, then the enemy should be lying in wait. But they are not.”

“Anyone coming after you would have to know that just setting off some charges in a building wouldn’t take you down,” J.B. said. His gaze took on a faraway look, a sure sign that he was thinking hard. “Maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“You’re taking this awfully well,” I said. “Your home is probably going to be destroyed.”

J.B. shrugged. “You’re out of there. Other than that, there wasn’t anything special inside that I cared about.”

“We still have to make sure that everyone is okay,” I said. “Even if this isn’t about me, the chances are good that the explosion was meant for one of us. We can’t let innocents die just because they’re caught in the cross fire.”

“You’re not going back in there,” J.B. said.

“She does not have to,” Nathaniel said.

He held me out to J.B. like I was a baby being passed to a relative. This time I did resent his high-handedness.

“Put me down,” I said.

Nathaniel complied without argument. I shivered as my bare feet touched the concrete. J.B. looked disappointed that he wouldn’t have a chance to carry me around while I wasn’t wearing any pants. I may not have had a lot of dignity at that moment, but I wanted to preserve what little I had. I would stand on my own two feet. Even if I was standing in rat poison and the remains of last week’s garbage.

“Just so you know, you’re not going in that building alone, either,” I said to Nathaniel. “So don’t get any funny ideas about being a hero.”

“I have no such ideas,” Nathaniel said. “I am simply going to scan the building and see if there is anyone alive inside. And it is easier for me to concentrate when I am not holding you.”

“You can do that? Scan the building like an X-ray machine?” I asked. Nathaniel was getting more terrifying by the moment.

He went very still, his blue eyes staring at J.B.’s former abode. Then he floated up to the roof and began descending slowly, methodically scanning each floor.

“My brother can do anything,” Bendith said with obvious pride.

“You could probably do it, too,” Beezle said, landing on my shoulder. “If you just applied yourself.”

“I apply myself,” I muttered.

“Yeah, you apply yourself to breaking and smashing,” Beezle said. “Not even remotely as cool—or as useful—as being able to check if anyone’s alive without going into the building.”

“Breaking and smashing has its place,” I said, stung.

“Not as often as you think it does,” Beezle replied.

“It must not have been a very big charge,” J.B. said. “The building would have collapsed otherwise.”

“I thought it was going to,” I admitted.

“I don’t know why you thought that,” Beezle said. “There’s magic protecting this building.”

J.B.’s eyebrows winged up to his hairline. “There is?”

“Yeah,” Beezle said. “I always check every building Maddy goes in.”

“You do?” I asked. “That’s news to me.”

“Home guardian,” Beezle said.

“Well, you never seem like you’re doing that much at home, so why would I think you were at work when we’re elsewhere?”

“Touché,” Beezle said. “But the fact remains that there is magic protecting this building.”

“I wonder who put it there,” I said.

Beezle shrugged. “J.B.’s mom probably laid it in to keep him safe.”

J.B. snorted. “That would require maternal feeling. My mother lacked that even when she was alive. And if she had put protective spells on my home, she would certainly have found some way to remove them after she thought I’d betrayed her by siding with Maddy so often.”

Beezle shook his head. “These spells have been embedded in the brick. Once done, it would be very difficult to undo.”

“Who would care enough to do that if not your mother?” I asked J.B.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. The fae have never shown much affection toward me in general. Even the members of my own court don’t think much of me. Of course, that’s probably because I spent so much time here instead of there.”

“Well, whoever put those spells there saved the building,” Beezle said. “The explosion probably would have taken the whole thing down otherwise. Right now magic is holding it up.”

Bendith had been completely silent during this exchange. He cast me the occasional sidelong look, though, like he was wondering how to get rid of me.

Nathaniel landed beside me, but his gaze was still focused on the building. He seemed like he was staring into the ground now.

“There is a basement in this structure, yes?” Nathaniel asked.

“Yeah,” J.B. said. “It’s got storage areas and some maintenance stuff.”

“There is no one in the rest of the building. The fireman went through while I was scanning. However, at this moment there are about forty creatures alive in that space,” Nathaniel said, pointing down.

“Creatures?” I asked.

“I cannot tell what they are, but they are definitely not human.”

I looked at the others. “I don’t think we can leave them there without investigating.”

“Why not?” Bendith asked. “They are not humans to be saved. Not that I consider humans worth the effort, but you apparently do.”

“Yeah, I’m unreasonable about saving my own kind,” I said.

“They are not your kind,” Bendith pointed out. “So why do we need to waste our time poking in the business of these creatures?”

“Because it might be forty vampires waiting for a signal to start chowing down on the population,” I said.

“Or it might be demons,” J.B. said.

“Or zombies,” Beezle said.

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” Beezle said. “There could be zombies.”

“The point is that something is in the basement that is not supposed to be, and we’re the only ones who know about it,” I said. “We check it out. Whatever is down there should have heard the explosion and smelled the smoke. Just about everything in the world has a sense of self-preservation when it comes to fire. So why are they still down there?”

“I do not care why they are there. I am not about to put myself in danger for something so foolish,” Bendith said.

“Then stay outside if you’re going to be useless,” I said. I addressed J.B. as I pointed to a metal door on the ground floor. “Is that the maintenance door? Does it lead to the basement?”

He nodded. “It’s usually locked.”

“That’s not a problem for me,” I said. “I’ll just do the Hound thing and then let you guys in.”

I went to the door, and tried not to feel self-conscious about the fact that I was wearing nothing but underpants and a T-shirt, and there were three guys standing behind me looking at my butt.

“You’re going to have to wait here for a second,” I said to Beezle.

He flew off my shoulder, hovering in the air beside me.

“Be careful,” he said.

“I will,” I said.

“No, you won’t,” Beezle said. “But it makes me feel better to say it.”

I placed my hand on the door and said the words. “I am the Hound of the Hunt, and no walls can bind me.”

The door went fluid, and I slipped inside. It was pitch-black, and that worried me. There should have been a safety light on. The smoke was thicker down here, closer to the source of the explosion.

I fumbled for the handle of the door in the dark. My fingers touched a dead bolt, and I turned it until it opened and then pushed the door open.

Nathaniel and J.B. had approached the door and were standing right on top of it when I swung it outward. Beezle immediately shot inside and took up his usual perch on my shoulder. Bendith stood several feet away with his arms crossed like a sulky child, spotlighted in the glare from the streetlight.

“Bendith,” I called softly. “Will you at least come over here and hold the door open while we’re inside?”

“I do not see why I should,” Bendith said.

“Bendith,” Nathaniel said. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was steel there.

Titania’s son slouched across the alley to the door and leaned against it, resuming his crossed-arm posture. “Happy?”

“Delighted,” I said. I gestured to the other two to enter.

Nathaniel immediately took up a position in front of me, and J.B. behind. I rolled my eyes.

Nathaniel lit a very small ball of nightfire. In its faint light we could see the empty maintenance hallway, and a set of dark stairs leading to the basement. There’s something ominous about steps disappearing into an underground darkness. Everyone knows that there’s nothing good in the basement. The basement is where secrets hide, horrors lurk.

And my own experience had taught me that monsters were definitely waiting for me.

Nathaniel sent the nightfire ahead of us. The little ball of light floated over the steps, showing that there was nothing waiting there for us. We proceeded cautiously down after it.

About halfway down, the smell hit me. My stomach roiled and I gagged.

“Don’t puke,” Beezle whispered. “You’ll definitely attract attention if you puke.”

I covered my nose and mouth. “What is that?”

It smelled sort of rotten, but also had a sharp, ammonia-like tang to it. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think of what. It seemed like I had smelled it recently, but it hadn’t been exactly the same. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“We definitely know someone smelly is in there,” J.B. said.

I reached for my sword, and realized I didn’t have it. It was lying on top of the pile of clothes I’d discarded next to the bed. I was loaded with magic, but I still felt strangely helpless without the sword.

The aura from the nightfire seemed a small thing, pathetic against the encroaching darkness. We had no hope of sneaking up on whatever was in the basement. The nightfire might as well be a beacon announcing our presence. It still seemed wiser to have light than go without.

Nathaniel reached the bottom step.