Black Heart

16

I HAD JUST A SECOND TO THROW A PROTECTIVE SPELL over the four of us. J.B. slammed into me from behind, wrenching me away from Nathaniel. He sped toward the window with me in his arms as the blast from the explosion licked at our heels.

We burst through the glass just ahead of the flame. I twisted out of his grasp, turning back to see Nathaniel emerge, unscathed, from inside the flame. My spell had worked. It had kept him safe.

There was a tremendous sound of impact as the flame reached the gas lines in the building, and the whole thing suddenly went up in a huge fireball.

Beezle peeked over the edge of my shirt pocket. “That’s magnificent, even for you.”

“I didn’t do that,” I said, irritated. “It’s just a coincidence that the building exploded. Someone else set a charge or a spell before we even got here.”

Beezle looked dubious. “Seems too convenient that someone else used your modus operandi. It’s almost like they knew you were going to be here.”

Nathaniel flew toward us like he was drunk, his face haggard and shocked. I met him in the air, taking his hands.

“Bendith,” he said hoarsely. “I could not . . . I could not . . .”

“I know,” I said.

Bendith was dead. Titania’s son was dead.

The sky above us turned a sickly, poison green. Clouds rolled in, swirling in a frantic circle above our heads.

“She’s coming,” I said. “The dominoes are falling.”

I felt a strange calm as I said this. The knot that had pulled so tight inside me was gone. The thing I had feared had happened. There was nothing left to do now except deal with the fallout.

“She?” Nathaniel said. He seemed numb, too wrapped in his own grief to realize what was happening.

“Titania,” I said.

The air around us crackled with tension, and then we heard it. A scream, a howl so complete in its pain that I felt it in the marrow of my bones. It started off softly, like it was far away, and then gathered in volume and intensity until I was forced to cover my ears so that they would not bleed, and still I could hear her, feel her screaming inside my brain and my heart, the grief of a mother who has lost her only child.

That grief went into the heart of me, into that place that lived every moment in fear for the life of my own son. Titania had been my enemy from the start, but I was sorry for her, more sorry than I could say. No one should have to feel pain like that.

Was this what Lucifer felt when he thought he’d lost Evangeline and his sons all those years ago? I thought with a sudden flash of insight. Or, worse, had he actually felt this way when I’d killed Baraqiel and Ramuell?

I hardly ever credited Lucifer with human feeling. God knows he had more children than could possibly be counted, and the ones I had met were pretty monstrous. But maybe that didn’t mean he loved them any less.

And just because it wasn’t in his nature to howl and rage at the sky didn’t mean that he wasn’t furious with me for killing them.

I don’t know why this had never bothered me before. Maybe it was because I was pregnant that I finally realized how it felt to be a parent, or maybe it was because Lucifer always acted like he cared about me. Everyone always talked about how obsessed he was with his bloodline, and I was part of that bloodline.

But a granddaughter several times removed couldn’t possibly hold the same rank as a child would in his heart.

J.B.’s voice broke into my reverie. “Um, maybe we should leave. Because Titania is going to be pretty upset, and like Beezle said, you’ve got a reputation for setting things on fire.”

“She’s going to blame me,” I said. It was strange how calm I felt as I said this. “Someone set me up. Someone manipulated us into coming here so that we could take the fall. Bendith was never taken by Titania’s men in the first place. Someone else’s agenda is at work here.”

J.B. tugged at my arm as the sky darkened more. “If you know you’re going to get blamed, then isn’t it better to leave the scene of the crime?”

“She’ll just chase me,” I said faintly, looking at the sky. “There’s nothing I can do to stop this.”

A showdown between Titania and me had been brewing for a while. She’d tried to kill me several times by proxy, but I didn’t think she was going to sit on her throne and try throwing a monster at me this time. She would want to feel my throat being crushed beneath her hands.

“Take Beezle,” I said, passing my gargoyle to J.B. “And get away. I’m going to try to lead her toward the lake, so nobody gets hurt.”

“Except you,” J.B. said.

“I won’t let her kill me,” I said, covering my belly with my hand. “I have too much to live for.”

Nathaniel finally seemed to come out of his shock-induced coma. “You are not going to battle the High Queen of Faerie.”

“You don’t get to decide,” I said. “The two of you are talking like I have a choice here. She’s going to think I killed Bendith. It doesn’t matter what the truth is, that I had nothing to do with it. I’m on the scene, and she hates me anyway. She’s going to hound me until I’m dead, no matter what. It’s better if we have this out now, while it’s just Titania. If I wait, she’ll raise an army against me and then I won’t have a prayer.”

Nathaniel grabbed me by the shoulders. “You don’t have a prayer now. She is an ancient thing, older even than Azazel. Even with all the depths of your power, she is stronger than you can imagine.”

“But she’s also mad with grief,” I said softly. “She won’t be thinking clearly. I will be.”

Nathaniel dropped his hands to his sides, his face shocked. “You mean to try to kill her.”

“You can’t,” J.B. said. “You could take out the whole city. Killing something that old and magical would be like setting off a nuclear bomb over Lake Michigan.”

“I can diminish her,” I said. “Like I did with Oberon.”

“This is ridiculous,” J.B said.

“I agree,” Nathaniel said.

Beezle only watched me with sad, steady eyes. “Maddy’s right. She has to do this now, or else Titania will never give her peace. But, Maddy . . .”

I waited for him to finish, my eyes on his.

“Don’t forget who you are,” he said finally.

“I won’t,” I promised, and kissed his forehead. “Now, go. I’m going to head toward the lake before the Wicked Witch appears.”

“Are you so sure she will follow you?” Nathaniel asked.

“Yes,” I said. “She’ll look for traces of magic, and she’ll know I was here. And once she knows that, she will follow me.”

“I do not want to leave you alone,” Nathaniel said. “I sent you away from me once, and I thought I lost you forever. You cannot ask me to stand by and let you take this risk on your own.”

“You have to. It’s me she wants, me that she will engage. You’ll just get in the way,” I said, pushing him toward J.B. and Beezle. “I won’t die.”

“Do not make promises you cannot keep,” Nathaniel said. “Everything dies. You should know that better than anyone. You told me so yourself.”

“I do know,” I said. “But I won’t let Titania kill me.”

He reached for me, but I backed away, shaking my head. “I’m not going to kiss you good-bye. Because I am going to come back.”

I turned away then, speeding east over the city and toward Lake Michigan. I wished I felt as confident as I seemed. There was a very good chance that Titania would tear me to shreds. But I had to try to deal with her now, while she was grieving and presumably not thinking straight. I might never have a shot otherwise.

The storm in the sky grew, reaching its tentacles across Chicago. The city below was coated in green light.

I passed over the Loop, a busy hive of people hurrying to work. The El rumbled along its various tracks. Cabs discharged harried passengers in front of office buildings. No one seemed in the least concerned that a major unscheduled storm was brewing.

The sailboats had returned to the harbor with the advent of spring, and the boats were rocking on their moorings as the lake was whipped up by the atmosphere.

I wondered whether Alerian had returned to the lake, and whether he would help me if I needed it. I knew next to nothing about my mysterious uncle, but I didn’t get the same feeling of warmth and comfort from him that I got from Daharan. I didn’t think he would be inclined to stick his neck out for me, especially since he didn’t seem to like Lucifer much.

None of his brothers seemed to like Lucifer much, come to think of it.

I kept going until I was well away from the shore, and still I flew. I didn’t want Titania anywhere near my city. The people of Chicago had suffered more than enough already.

When I glanced behind me and saw that the skyline was nothing but a speck, I stopped and turned around. My heart was pounding furiously in my chest. I floated high above the surface of Lake Michigan, and wondered just what the hell I thought I was doing here.

I didn’t have the least idea of how I would defeat Titania. I just knew that I had to. This wasn’t just about my life, no matter what I’d claimed to Nathaniel and J.B. It was about my baby.

My pregnancy wasn’t hidden anymore. Now that her son was dead, she wouldn’t be satisfied with just killing me. She would want my child, the tangible proof that she had defeated Lucifer’s favorite, that she had obtained an advantage in her ongoing battle with the Morningstar.

So she wouldn’t kill me. Not right away. She would keep me like a breeding animal until the baby was born. Then she would take my son and kill me by inches, letting me live my final moments in agony, knowing that my child would grow up calling her “Mommy” instead of me.

Maybe I was getting better at figuring out what immortals wanted.

The storm above the city had chased me over the lake, the physical manifestation of Titania’s seeking magic. I waited.

There was no warning. One moment I was alone, fluttering my wings to stay aloft in the increasing wind, and the next moment she was there before me.

Her face was as unearthly and beautiful as always, even when frozen in a white mask of rage. She was dressed in unyielding black, and it only made her beauty more perfect, more unreal.

“Madeline Black,” she said, and in her voice was all the power that she had kept suppressed for centuries.

This was an ancient being, perhaps older than the Earth itself. She had been toying with her court and with mortal lives to keep amused as the eons passed. Like Lucifer, she hadn’t bothered to exert herself for time untold. But now she was angry, and grieving, and all of that magic was building inside her, waiting to punish me.

“Titania,” I said. “I had nothing to do with his death.”

“If you did not, then why did you run from me?” she asked. Her voice was pitched low and full of malice.

“Because I knew you would think I killed Bendith,” I said. I gathered my energy. I didn’t want to be the one to strike the first blow. I was still hoping—in a vague, naïve sort of way—that this wouldn’t turn into a fistfight. But I wanted to be prepared for whatever Titania might decide to do.

“You were there,” she said. “You, and Amarantha’s whelp, and that fallen angel that Puck fathered.”

“Yes. We were looking for your child,” I said. Something in me grasped at straws, hoping she would believe we were there for benevolent reasons. It didn’t seem likely. Titania had thought the worst of me from the start. As I gathered my energy, I touched the place of darkness inside me, the place that had nearly overwhelmed me. I did not want to go to that place again. But I would, if I had to. I could not let Titania take my son.

“You were looking for him so you could kill him?” Titania said. “Spare me your lies.”

“Titania,” I said. “It doesn’t have to end this way. I never sought to be your enemy.”

“And yet you have behaved as my enemy from the start. You murdered Queen Amarantha, one of my subjects. You killed my Hob. You diminished my husband. Time and again, you have defied me, made me look the fool in front of my own court. And now you have taken my son from me.”

“I did not,” I said. “Someone made sure that you would think that. I might be guilty of all the other stuff, but I didn’t kill Bendith. Why would I?”

“To hurt me, of course,” she said. “To lay me low.”

“I don’t care that much about you,” I said. “I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m not interested in having you as ally or an enemy. I just want to be left alone. That’s all I ever wanted.”

“And your wish shall be granted,” Titania said. “After I cut your child from your belly, I will bury you alive at the bottom of the sea, on a planet at the far end of the universe. There will you die slowly, alone, secure in the knowledge that it was your own actions that brought you there.”

“You won’t take my child,” I said, my anger flaring. Thus far I’d managed to remain relatively calm in the face of Titania’s magic, in the face of her threats. But when she spoke the very words I had thought only a few minutes before, my temper surged. Nightfire lit on both of my palms.

To my surprise, Titania laughed. It was a high and mirthless cackle, the cry of a heartbroken witch.

“Do you really think that you can defeat me with such small and pathetic spells?” she said. “I have seen galaxies rise and fall. You are nothing but a blip in the universe, and your power is nothing to me.”

She lifted her hand, palm flat, and blew air across her fingers at me.

I tumbled backward across the sky, caught in the gale of a hurricane wind. There was no way to right myself as the world went spinning. Titania’s laugh trailed behind me.

The wind abruptly stopped, and I plummeted toward the lake. I managed to pull my body up just before I crashed into the cold depths below.

The nightfire in my hands had been extinguished by Titania’s wind. I looked wildly around for the Faerie Queen, but she seemed to have disappeared.

I did a quick search of the area for a trace of magic that I could follow. I didn’t want Titania to sneak up on me again. But there was nothing. The Faerie Queen had appeared without warning, and disappeared just as quickly.

She hadn’t even really used her power on me, and I’d been completely neutralized. Somehow, despite all the odds against me, I’d always managed to defeat my enemy. Even when I’d fought Azazel, I’d been sure I could find a way.

But I was outclassed here. Everyone had warned me that tangling with something as old as Titania was a bad idea. Too bad it took me so long to realize it.

The attack, when it came, arrived without warning. One moment I was searching the air for Titania. The next moment pain was arcing through my body. It was like I had been set on fire from the inside out, but it was a small, subtle fire. It wormed in between the layers of muscle and nerve. It made me want to scream and tear at my clothes, claw at my skin until it bled and I let the burning thing that was underneath out.

Titania blinked into sight a few feet in front of me. She’d been covered under a veil so thorough that I hadn’t even been aware she was using magic. My own spell hadn’t found a trace of her.

She had one hand raised, and her eyes were focused with laser intensity on mine. I could feel her hate. She wanted me to bleed, and she wanted to watch.

The pain was agony. I couldn’t fight this. Fire was the weapon I used on everyone else. It had never harmed me before, and a part of me felt vaguely betrayed. I couldn’t smash it or hit it or knock it down. I could barely even think straight. The fire had sped through my spine and up to my brain, seeping into the layers of cortex, setting off all the synapses like a triggered minefield. Pain exploded in my head, and I did scream then. Blood gushed from my nose in a torrent.

I had to get away from her, get away from the pain. But I couldn’t even move, and I realized she was holding me in place, keeping me still so she could torture me. I hung in the air like a rag doll, suspended only by Titania’s will, unable to do anything more than writhe in agony.

There had never been any hope for me, really. It had always been a matter of time before I was caught and pinned like a struggling butterfly by one of these creatures.

As I thought this, my son shifted in my belly, his little wings fluttering in distress.

My son. My son. I couldn’t let Titania win. I couldn’t let her take him away. That thought centered me, gave me the clarity I needed to think through the pain.

There was no chance of my reversing the spell on Titania as I had with Azazel. This magic was much more powerful, and much more invasive. I needed to get her to stop.

Then I needed to find some way to make her hurt as much as she had hurt me. It was the only thing she understood.

I could offer her compassion in the face of her loss and she would simply spit it back at me. I could try to explain, try to broker a peace with her.

There was no point. Titania had decided long ago that I was her enemy. And every time I had selfishly refused to let her hurt me, or humiliate me, or kill me for the amusement of her court, I had only compounded her notion that I existed only to defy her.

So many of my choices seemed to come down to this. I could kill, or I could be killed. It was not the life I wanted for myself, or for my child. But it was the only life I had, and I couldn’t let Titania take it away.

She laughed like a mad fiend as I grew visibly weaker. Blood was still running from my nose and the loss was making me feel dizzy and sick. I pulled my focus together, reached deep inside me for my magic.

And touched the black heart inside of me, the swirling, dark mass of power that threatened to consume me.

I could use that power, and survive, and possibly be someone else afterward, someone that Beezle had warned of, someone that may not be recognizable as Madeline Black.

Or I could let Titania keep me locked in a cage for the rest of my short life while she poked me with sticks.

When I thought about it that way, there really wasn’t much of a choice at all.

I’m sorry, Beezle.

I plunged into the darkness.