“What are you doing here, Nathaniel?” I asked.
“Why ask him? He’s just going to lie. It’s the way of his kind,” Jude said.
“Shut up, Jude,” I said, and looked at Nathaniel expectantly.
He glanced again at Jude, at Samiel, at Gabriel. “May I speak with you alone, Madeline?”
“No,” Gabriel, Jude and Beezle replied, and Samiel shook his head angrily.
I could have told the four of them that I was quite capable of handling Nathaniel. When he had attacked me I’d blasted a hole in him that had taken weeks to heal. But it didn’t seem to be the time to engage in another pointless argument. We had enough of those going around.
Nathaniel sighed. “I was following you.”
Of all the answers he could have given, this was the least expected.
“Why?” I asked blankly. “How?”
He looked away from me, seemingly embarrassed. “I arrived at your home just before you entered the portal. I overheard your conversation and wanted to assist you.”
“Why?” I asked again. I’d indicated pretty clearly to Nathaniel that I would be happy if I never saw him again the last time we’d spoken.
He turned his head back and gave me a very pointed stare. “Do you not know?”
My cheeks heated in embarrassment as the other four looked at me speculatively. “Oh, for crying out loud. Okay, show’s over.”
I reached down and hauled Nathaniel to his feet. I immediately regretted this, first since it required touching him—a thing I was loath to do—and second since he towered over me by about a foot. I definitely felt I’d lost the advantage I’d had when he was on the ground.
All the men bristled as their prisoner brushed the dirt from his clothing. That was Nathaniel—appearance above all. So what if you were surrounded by a bunch of people who hated you? It just wasn’t acceptable to have your jacket wrinkled while being beaten to a pulp.
“If you were here to help Maddy, why were you sneaking through the forest?” Jude asked. “You were heading in the opposite direction of the clearing.”
Something flickered in Nathaniel’s eyes. It was so brief I thought maybe I’d imagined it. Then he looked at me and said, “I was following the demon trail through the woods. I thought perhaps if I found something, I could redeem myself in your eyes.”
I wanted to tell him that it would take a lot more than that to redeem him, and that his references to an incident I’d rather forget weren’t doing a lot to help his case.
I looked at Jude for verification. “Was he actually on the demon’s trail?”
Jude looked mutinous. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Okay, then. Fine. Nathaniel is here to help, and we can all treat him accordingly.”
Nobody looked happy about this except Nathaniel, who seemed to regain some of his usual arrogance.
“If you will all follow me this way, I did in fact discover something interesting,” he said.
Then he turned and disappeared into the woods without waiting to see if we would follow.
“Yes, your majesty,” I muttered.
Gabriel and Samiel looked at me questioningly. Jude scowled, as usual. I heaved a sigh and went after Nathaniel, and the rest fell in line behind me.
Nobody spoke as we moved through the forest, not even Beezle. I suspected that he was trying to save me some embarrassment by not telling Nathaniel off. Beezle understood better than the others how vulnerable I’d felt since Nathaniel’s assault, no matter how big a game I talked.
Jude was obviously still furious because I didn’t suspect Nathaniel, Gabriel was being cool and reserved as usual, and Samiel was waiting to see what happened before he passed judgment.
I was trying very hard not to think too much about Nathaniel or my somersaulting stomach, and concentrate instead on moving quietly through the woods. The other four glided over rocks and tree roots like water, but my boots managed to detect every possible obstacle to trip over. I just wasn’t born with the sneaky-ninja gene.
After several minutes had passed Nathaniel came to a stop in a small clearing. A large outcropping of rock with visible glacial striations rose along the west side of the clearing. Green moss covered in frost clung weakly to the formation. The weak winter sun shone above the bare branches of red oaks and sugar maples.
“This is the place where the demons’ trail ran out when I followed them earlier,” Jude said. “So if that’s what you’ve brought us here for, we can just turn around.”
Nathaniel didn’t even deign to answer Jude. He simply crossed to the bottom of the rock formation and beckoned to me.
“If you would look here,” he said, and pointed to a spot about four feet above the ground.
I stepped closer and crouched down, peering into the shadowed notch where Nathaniel had pointed.
“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Beezle asked belligerently.
“Quiet,” I said, leaning forward.
I brushed away some dirt and frost with the three remaining fingers of my left hand. Samiel had cut off the ring and pinkie fingers before we’d come to an understanding. Lucifer had told me the missing digits would grow back but so far I didn’t detect anything exciting happening on that front.
“Look.” I pointed to the same sigil I’d seen earlier, a circle with a small V on top. “I found this in the clearing where the pack was attacked,” I said. “It was inside the footprint of a demon.”
“I’ve never seen a demon’s mark like that before,” Beezle said.
That was saying something. Beezle is pretty much an encyclopedia of things that go bump in the night, and he knows the arcana of the fallen like he knows all the flavors at Dunkin’ Donuts. If he didn’t recognize the mark, then it was something new. And my recent experience with the fallen had taught me that anything new was something to dread.
Gabriel leaned over my shoulder and I smelled a whiff of cinnamon, the scent that I associated with an angelic being using their powers.
“It is a holding place for a portal,” Gabriel announced.
“What is that?” I said, standing up. Gabriel took an immediate step back so that he wouldn’t brush up against me. I ignored the little pulse of hurt that accompanied his action and turned around.
“You would think of it, hmm, perhaps like a button to open an elevator?” Gabriel said. “The magic for the portal is embedded inside this symbol. The demons’ master would have given them a key that could activate the sigil and open the portal.”
Jude pushed forward, shouldering Gabriel and me out of his way. He glared at the sigil like he could open it with his force of will.
“Are you saying that we just need to open this little thing and we can find Wade and the rest of the pack?” Jude said. “The demons went through here?”
“It is possible that the demons took another portal elsewhere once they exited this one,” Nathaniel said. “However, they certainly left the forest this way.”
“Then open it,” Jude said.
“Gabriel just explained that you need a key, you numbskull,” Beezle said. “How are we supposed to get it open without a key?”
Jude turned on us with furious eyes. “I did not prostrate myself before the granddaughter of my enemy so that we could stand around in the forest and stare at the only way I have of getting to my pack.”
“Who prostrated?” I mumbled. Jude had come to me reluctantly and his attitude had hardly recommended him. But I was trying to give him a pass because he was obviously in a tremendous amount of distress over the loss of Wade and the cubs.
“Find a way,” he said.
“Do not speak to Madeline in that fashion,” Nathaniel said. I was a little surprised that he’d stepped forward so readily to defend me. Nathaniel, like Lucifer, generally likes to appear above the fray.
Jude whirled and turned on him, his fists clenched. “I’ll speak to her how I please. You’re not free and clear on this as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t think you�
�re in any position to tell me what to do.”
“Nathaniel is the one who found the sigil for us,” I pointed out. “We didn’t have a clue to go on before that.”
“Yes, and isn’t it convenient that he managed to discover something so small in a forest this size,” Jude sneered.
I glanced at Nathaniel, momentarily unsure. It was true that I didn’t think of Nathaniel as trustworthy. I considered him an angel who would always put his own desires first, and those desires were generally not compatible with anyone who wasn’t completely and totally preoccupied with status in the courts.
He was shallow and vain and annoyingly pompous, but he didn’t seem to have any motivation for harming Wade or the pack, and I told Jude so.
“How do you know what motivations he has?” Jude said, turning back to me with a reddened face. “How can you know the secrets of the hearts of the fallen? Just how stupid can you possibly be?”
Gabriel started to say something to this but I waved him away. I didn’t need him to stand in front of me. I could handle Jude.
“You may want to rethink your comment,” I said through my teeth. I felt the familiar surge of power that accompanied the rising tide of anger. I’d tried to be patient with Jude, to be sympathetic to his plight. But I didn’t have to stand still and let him swipe at me. “Given that your alpha is in negotiations with Lucifer, it would not be politic for you to insult his granddaughter.”
“Politics,” Jude spat. “Politics mean nothing to me. They are an excuse for Lucifer to find a way to have dominion over all things.”
I thought that Jude was probably right, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him.
“The point here is not what Lucifer wants or doesn’t want,” I said angrily. The snake on my right palm tingled, like it was trying to get my attention. I ignored it. “The point is that we’re all here to help you find Wade and the cubs and you’ve offered nothing more helpful than suspicion and name-calling.”
Jude’s face was purple with rage. His hands flexed into his fists, and I thought for a minute that he might actually hit me.
My right hand suddenly felt as though it were being squeezed between the fangs of a snake, and I cried out.
“What’s the matter with you now?” Beezle asked.
I glared down at the snake tattoo. “There are other ways of getting my attention.”
The snake writhed, as if to say, “I tried to be nice, but you weren’t listening.”
“And now I am,” I said. Warmth spread under the skin, starting at the head of the snake, and coursed up my arm. A minute later I knew what I had to do.
“I’m not at all certain that I like having you there,” I muttered.
It was very disconcerting to have an independent entity working through my body, especially an entity so closely aligned with Lucifer. But there was no denying that the snake tattoo had helped me get out of a sticky situation or two.
The snake winked at me.
Beezle tapped a claw on my head. “Are you talking to your hand? You look like a crazy person.”
I looked up from contemplating my unwanted parasite and found the other four staring at me. Jude’s rage seemed to have receded somewhat in the face of my strange behavior.
There was no point in trying to explain, so I just waved them all away from the rock that we were huddled around. “Stand back.”
Wonder of wonders, they all listened without asking why, backing away several feet. Maybe I should act like a nutcase more often.
I held my right hand in front of me so that the snake tattoo faced the sigil carved in the rock. Again, I felt an uncomfortable heat just under the skin, and I realized that the warmth pulsed from my heartstone to my hand.
This, then, was Lucifer’s power, so long dormant inside of me. I’d felt it once before, when I had taken Lucifer’s sword from Nathaniel, before I’d entered the Maze.
The clearing was lit by an intense yellow light. I knew that my eyes were blazing with the magic of the Morningstar.
The sigil on the rock glowed red in response, and a swirling vortex appeared inside the symbol. The vortex grew, sweeping leaves and branches and other detritus from the clearing inside it. I dropped my hand and beckoned to the others.
“Come on!” I shouted. “We don’t know how long it will stay open.”
Gabriel stepped in front of me, making sure that he entered the portal before I did. Samiel gave Nathaniel a dirty look when Nathaniel tried to get in front of him. He shouldered Nathaniel out of his way and Jude followed suit.
One by one they disappeared into the portal. It was pretty clear that they all considered Nathaniel a second-class citizen. It was equally clear that none of them considered me capable enough to be the first through the portal. Except, that was, Nathaniel, who knew firsthand just what I was capable of.
“After you, my lady,” he said, and sketched a little bow.
“I hate portals,” Beezle grumbled as I stepped forward.
I felt a moment of trepidation. We didn’t know where the portal went. And we could end up smack in the middle of a demon court, or a world that was toxic to humans, or who knew what else. But the trail for Wade and the cubs ended here, and there were no other leads to follow.
I went into the portal.
There was a tremendous pressure between my ears. My eyeballs felt like they were turning to jelly. Beezle squeezed his claws so hard on my shoulder that I was sure they would leave a mark. I closed my eyes and heard only the relentless, swirling wind of the vortex.
The pressure abruptly ceased as we emerged. I tried for a graceful landing but I’ve never managed one yet despite some recent practice with this mode of travel.
I barreled right into Gabriel, who stood in front of the portal. He caught me easily around the waist. Gabriel has some experience with my ineptitude with portals.
I sucked in my breath at the feeling of his hands through my coat. The heat of him penetrated through layers of clothing. Stars exploded in his eyes.
“Ahem,” said a gravelly voice close to my ear. “Before the two of you head into la-la land, you might want to remember that you have an audience.”
Gabriel lowered me to the ground, slowly. I didn’t look around but I felt my cheeks heating in embarrassment. I don’t like drawing attention to my feelings for Gabriel.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them there was a clean canvas of black, the stars muted by shadow, and he let me go.
Nathaniel emerged from the portal behind me, and I turned around in time to see it closing. Where the portal had been, there was another of the demon sigils carved into rock.
I finally took the time to look around. We were crowded in a low cave formed of a strange white rock that gave off a phosphorescent glow. The air was heavy and humid. Water dripped down the walls of the cave and formed puddles beneath our feet. There was only one exit.
Everyone looked at me expectantly.
“Oh, sure, I can’t go through the portal first but I get to be the one who makes the life-or-death decisions,” I muttered.
I went to the mouth of the tunnel that led away from the cave. The pale gleam of rock stretched from the cave, seemingly endless, and into dark nothingness.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“This is where the trail brought us,” Jude said. “We need to go forward.”
“Yeah, and if a pack of demons comes from the other direction, we’ll all be jammed up in that narrow passage,” I said. “There’s not a lot of room to fight in there.”
“For our enemies, either,” Gabriel pointed out.
“That means that there will be just as much useless slaughter for them as for us,” I said. “We might take out some of them but we’ll suffer stupid losses in the meantime.”
“Well, what do you suggest we do?” Jude snapped. “Go back through the portal and go home and wait and hope that the demons give Wade and the cubs back to us?”
“No,” I said, frustr
ated.
I knew that we had to go forward. There was no other way. But when I looked down that tunnel I felt a powerful surge of foreboding.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I don’t want us to get stopped up in that tunnel. So we’re going to string out in a formation ten steps apart. Beezle will go first…”
“Why me?” Beezle asked. “If you’re looking for someone to take stupid chances, you’re looking at the wrong gargoyle.”
“Because you’re the smallest, and you can fly ahead and scout for us with the least risk,” I said impatiently. “I’ll follow at the head of the column.”
“No, you will not,” Gabriel said.
Samiel shook his head in agreement.
“You both have to get over this idea that I’m helpless,” I said. “Besides, there’s a small chance that any demons we encounter will back off if I show them Lucifer’s symbol.”
“And what if they do not, as you say, ‘back off’?” Nathaniel asked.
“Well, it’s not as though I’m powerless. We’re not arguing about this,” I said to Gabriel and Samiel. “I’m going first. Then Gabriel, ten steps behind me. Then Jude, Samiel and Nathaniel.”
I ordered them thus because I assumed if we ran into trouble, Nathaniel would turn around and run in the other direction and therefore free up some space in the narrow tunnel. I’d never seen any evidence that he was particularly skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and he seemed to value his own skin above anyone else’s.
“If Beezle does run into anything, he’ll come back to us and raise the alarm. Don’t crowd up on me if it comes to a fight. Stay in your positions. We’ll have more room to maneuver and the demons won’t be sure how many of us there are if we’re spread out.”
None of them looked particularly thrilled by my plan, and I have to say that I wasn’t overwhelmed by my brilliance, either. But it was the best I could come up with, and none of them had anything better on offer.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Beezle flew off my shoulder, muttering imprecations at me for forcing an old gargoyle to do such tedious and difficult work.
“There’s a doughnut in it for you if you do your job and stop complaining,” I said.
Black Howl Page 4
