Black City (A BLACK WINGS NOVEL)

by Christina Henry

  The wind picked up and blew my hair in front of my eyes, and that distracted me for a second. I touched my hair, which Chloe had neatened into a pixie cut for me only last week. Now my curls brushed against my jawline.

  “Nathaniel, my hair grew back,” I said, and looked down at the missing fingers that had so recently reemerged. The scabs on my back itched.

  “Hmmm?” Nathaniel said. He was scanning the area for threats, which was probably the smart thing to do.

  “My hair grew back. And my fingers grew back.” And you have powers that you never had before. My conviction that something had fundamentally changed inside both of us during the spell was getting stronger by the moment.

  Nathaniel stopped and focused on me. His eyes widened as he took in my new hairstyle. “Your wings…”

  “I thought of that, too,” I said. “But so far my back is just itchy.”

  We were about halfway across the bridge. A metal fence separated us from the river below. I couldn’t see anything lurking in the shadows ahead, or above.

  I wasn’t really thinking about the possibility of something coming up from below. So when the vampire struck, neither Nathaniel nor I was prepared.

  7

  THE VAMPIRE’S ARMS CURVED OVER THE FENCE AND took me off my feet before I had half a chance to think. Before I knew it the vamp had bound me tight to its side with a fiercely strong grip and nestled me against its cold body. I couldn’t move my arms. The world stank of blood and meat, and the vampire chittered wildly, sounding like an insect.

  It was skittering upside down on the underside of the lower deck of the bridge. I faced downward, but I couldn’t see anything except the blood-soaked jaws of the vampire. My head and stomach whirled. Nausea was an inevitability. I was already exhausted, but I had nothing in my stomach to throw up. I was plastered to the side of a vampire, gagging on my own bile.

  I’d dropped my sword on the bridge—I’d heard it clatter on the pavement—and my magic was still burned out and useless.

  Then there was a tremendous roar of rage, and the whole bridge shook. The vampire paused, the way spiders will when they know they’re about to get crushed under somebody’s heel. I could see nothing, but there was a sound of cracking pavement, and chunks of street smashed into me.

  There was the ozone smell of nightfire. The vampire screamed, started to fall. I was falling, too, and then Nathaniel’s hand was somehow wrapped in my coat, holding me fast while the vampire descended into the river below. He pulled through the hole he’d smashed and rolled me into his arms.

  “That was close,” I said, my voice muffled. My face was pressed against his bare chest.

  He didn’t say anything. He just held me tight. It might have been pleasant under another circumstance, but I couldn’t move my arms and it was a little difficult to breathe.

  “Nathaniel,” I said. “Nathaniel! I need oxygen.”

  He finally released me, and I took several deep lungfuls of air.

  “I should have been more cautious,” he said. “I am sorry.”

  “Are you apologizing for not predicting the unpredictable?” I said. “I wasn’t looking for the vampire under the bridge, either. Although I probably should have been, given that I encounter monsters with abnormal frequency.”

  “I feel like a fool,” Nathaniel said. “I had only just declared myself to you. I’d pronounced that I would protect you and your child, and a monster stole you from beneath my nose.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it. It happens to me all the time. You know what’s weird, though? Why didn’t the vampire just eat me right away?”

  “Perhaps it had gorged itself earlier and was planning on saving you for another meal,” Nathaniel said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Don’t you think it would have at least drained me a little so I would be more compliant? It seemed it wanted to take me somewhere.”

  “To its master, perhaps?” Nathaniel asked.

  “That would be logical. If it was fetching me for a higher-ranking vampire, then it probably wouldn’t want to offend its boss by taking my blood.”

  “Which then begs the question of why the vampire wanted you specifically.”

  “Yeah. That’s not really a question I’d enjoy answering. I’m sure I won’t like the result, whatever it is.” I looked around. “Where’s my sword?”

  “There,” Nathaniel said, pointing back toward the place where the vampire had grabbed me. “I could not lift it. It would not allow me to touch it.”

  “But you gave me that sword,” I said. “It belonged to your father.”

  “The sword seems to have given itself to you completely.”

  Or maybe the sword of Lucifer recognized the blood of the Morningstar’s sworn enemy, but I wasn’t going to say that. Not yet, anyway. Not until I was 100 percent sure—but I was getting there. I wondered how Nathaniel would react if I was right. It might unhinge him. He put a lot of stock in the quality of his bloodline.

  I fetched the sword, and then jogged back to Nathaniel. “Let’s get home.”

  There was the distinct click of a safety being released behind us.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  We turned around slowly to face Bryson’s furious glare. He held a semiautomatic pistol, and it was pointed at me.

  “What is your problem?” I asked. “Has it escaped your attention that the city has been overrun by vampires?”

  “Sokolov wants you brought in. So you will be brought in,” Bryson said. “He’s had enough of your defiance.”

  “Does he know you tried to shoot us out of the sky earlier?” I asked, thinking of Nathaniel’s shredded wing, our terrifying fall through the air. “Or am I wanted dead or alive?”

  Bryson smiled briefly. “I am supposed to bring you in alive. But if there were an unfortunate accident, I believe Sokolov would understand.”

  I was suddenly angry, so angry that I didn’t know what to do with all that energy. I was sick to death of being hounded by the shortsighted Agency when there were more important problems at hand.

  My magic leapt to the fore, and my power pulsed through the night.

  Nathaniel put his hand on my shoulder. “Ease down, unless you wish to destroy the bridge while we are still on it.”

  The darkness was filled with light, and it was coming from me.

  “Hear this, Bryson,” I said, and my voice was different. There was a power and a promise in it. “If you attempt to take, threaten or harm me or my friends again, then I will destroy you so utterly that the world will not even recall that you ever existed.”

  I could crush him like a bug. His gun was a toy, a meaningless thing that he used to feel powerful. I blasted his hand with nightfire and the weapon clattered to the ground. I stalked toward him, and Bryson, super-soldier of the Agency, backed away from me.

  “You have been broken by one of my kind before,” I said. “But obviously not enough. The pain you felt then will be nothing compared to what horrors you will suffer at my hands.”

  I could do it. I knew I could. I could make him hurt. The power was in me. There was a dark shadow in my heart, and it urged me onward.

  “Madeline!” Nathaniel said behind me, and his hand roughly pulled me back. “Madeline! You are not yourself. Think.”

  He gave me a little shake, and I nearly blasted him before his urgent tone got through to me. The darkness receded as suddenly as it had emerged.

  “What…what was that about?” I gasped. I looked to my left. Bryson had fled. Which was good. I didn’t think I could live with myself if I’d done all the horrible things I’d been contemplating.

  “You must be careful,” Nathaniel said. “As more of Lucifer’s power is revealed in you, so, too, is his darkness.”

  I had felt hints of this before, a sinister undertone to the magic that was emerging slowly inside me. But I’d always thought I was in control of it, that my own personality would overcome any darker impulses. Now I wasn’t so
sure.

  I tipped my head forward to Nathaniel’s shoulder for a moment, weary beyond belief. Now that the burst of power had receded, my whole being just wanted to lie down and rest. But I wouldn’t be able to rest until we were home.

  “Let’s go,” I said, lifting my head. Nathaniel nodded.

  It took us most of the night. My weariness was extreme, and while the vampires avoided the path along the lake, there were plenty of other things that did not—demons, mostly, roaming for stragglers.

  We avoided the creatures if we could, always mindful of the fact that neither of us could fly. When we could not avoid conflict Nathaniel’s newfound strength and speed tended to keep the encounters short. As we got farther away from the Loop, we felt safer cutting west and then north again on the city streets. As the day approached, we were on Clark, the distinctive curve of Wrigley Field’s façade before us.

  The streets were so quiet. Many people had obviously fled, and any who had stayed behind were safely tucked inside their apartments and condos, cowering behind furniture stacked against doors.

  In their hands would be Mace and hair spray and fire extinguishers and guns, for those who believed in that sort of thing. Others would be on their knees, hands folded and eyes shut tight, calling the name of their chosen savior.

  All around us was the debris of a fallen world—a smashed cell phone, a Starbucks cup, a dropped scarf, a suitcase that had broken open and spilled its contents all over the street.

  Inside the case were the things its owner had considered important—a wedding photo in a silver frame, the glass shattered; wool socks rolled in multicolored balls; lacy underwear; designer jeans; a stack of Fiber One bars; a jewelry roll that had already been stripped of anything valuable; a deck of cards.

  Farther down the street was a stuffed dinosaur, trampled in some mad stampede. The sight of it made me painfully sad. The child who’d dropped that stuffed toy would be crying, confused and scared, and now lacked even the simple, basic comfort of their favorite friend. Wherever that child was, the night would be a little darker, a little colder, without their dinosaur. Everyone knows dinosaurs keep the monsters away.

  The bars on Clark Street advertised drink specials, live bands, half-priced hamburgers. The flags above the storefronts fluttered pathetically in the wind, the logos of the Cubs and the Blackhawks, the Bulls and the Bears. The red stars of the Chicago city flag looked like bloodstained hands lined up in a row.

  Yesterday all of these things had seemed desperately important—whether or not the Hawks beat the Wings, or your friend was late to the bar. Today everyone was just trying to hold on, to not have to witness their family being devoured by vampires.

  All of the edifices of humanity—the roads and the cars, the fast-food joints and the parking meters, the smartphones and the bicycles, lazy days at the ballpark, afternoons grilling while the kids scoot up and down the sidewalk, boutiques and thrift stores, Italian ice and Italian beef, cheering for a touchdown in a bar with a mouthful of nachos and beer sloshing over the table, complaining about the traffic, complaining about the taxes, complaining about the mayor and the garbage pickup and the noisy college kids having a party, library books and comic books, kissing in the kitchen or on the front porch or in the shadow of a tower—all of these things had been swept away. Maybe someday there would be a new normal. But for now everything that had made Chicago was gone.

  “Madeline,” Nathaniel said. His hand was at my elbow. “Madeline, we are nearly home.”

  I realized I stood in the middle of Clark Street with the dinosaur clutched to my chest.

  “Madeline,” Nathaniel said again, and put his arm around my shoulder, made me move my feet.

  “How can anything be the same again?” I said.

  “This is what happens during war,” Nathaniel said, and his voice was gentle, so like Gabriel’s that my heart ached.

  “The war is here because of me. These people suffered because of me, because Azazel hated me so much that he needed to send the monster to my doorstep.”

  “If it was not Chicago, it would have been some other city, some other innocents. And you would have felt just as responsible, because Azazel is your father.”

  I squeezed the stuffed dinosaur in my hands. “You’re right. I would have. But that knowledge doesn’t make this any easier. He destroyed my home, the city I loved.”

  I’m not sure how we got home. The last mile or so was a blur. I remember ringing the doorbell—my keys had gone missing somewhere in the night—and Samiel opening the door, his face white and drawn with worry. I fell into his arms, and then everything was black.

  When I opened my eyes again I was in my own bed. The sun streamed through the windows, and Beezle sat on the pillow next to me, watching me sleep.

  “Do you know that your hair has grown about four inches while you slept?”

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes, and the stuffed dinosaur rolled onto my lap.

  “You were clutching that filthy thing for two days,” Beezle said. “No one could pry it out of your hands. I wiped it down with antibacterial gel as best I could so that you wouldn’t get botulism all over your sheets.”

  “I was asleep for two days?” I asked.

  “Yes. And have I mentioned your unusual hair growth, and the fact that Nathaniel’s essence is different from what it was when he left?”

  I went still. I hoped Beezle hadn’t blabbed about the change in Nathaniel.

  “You mentioned my hair. Twice. So it grew back. What’s the big deal?”

  Beezle narrowed his eyes at me. “What happened between you two while you were out there?”

  “I’m sure Nathaniel told you all about it,” I said with studied nonchalance.

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed that Nathaniel is somewhat taciturn,” Beezle said. “He’s not what you’d call a gripping storyteller.”

  “What’s to tell? We put a veil over the hospital to protect the people inside. We were chased by Bryson and a bunch of his goons. They shot us out of the sky and we had to walk home, dodging monsters along the way.”

  “And nothing else happened?”

  I gave Beezle my best big brown eyes and tried not to blink too much. I’d read somewhere that blinking was a sign of lying. “Nope. Nothing else.”

  The door opened and Nathaniel came in. It was like all the air had just been squeezed from the room.

  Beezle turned his head slowly from me to Nathaniel and back again. Then he addressed me. “You are a crappy liar. Don’t think you’ll be able to hide…whatever this is…from the others.”

  And he flew out of the room, grumbling under his breath.

  Nathaniel closed the door behind him. He looked clean and rested, and he was dressed more casually than I’d ever seen him in a gray sweater and blue jeans.

  It was hard for me to look at him now that the crisis was over. What had happened between us seemed like a moment out of time, a thing that had happened once but couldn’t happen again. I could only imagine what Samiel would think if Nathaniel and I became involved. I’d just buried Samiel’s brother, and I was carrying his brother’s child.

  Even as I thought all of this, Nathaniel sat down on the bed beside me. He took my hand in his, and the space between us crackled with electricity. I had serious doubts about my self-restraint. Something was compelling me toward Nathaniel, despite all reason, despite our history, despite the fact that a part of me sensed it was dangerous for both of us to go any further. Was I turning into a woman who wanted the wrong man for all the wrong reasons? Would my baser instincts really prevail?

  “You are well?” Nathaniel asked. “Your powers are restored?”

  I did a quick internal check and found that everything was as it should be. My baby fluttered its wings reassuringly.

  “Yes. And you?” I said. “Is your wing healed?”

  Nathaniel turned so that I could see that his wing had been restored. “Samiel helped me repair it.”

  “That’s good,” I said,
then decided I might as well forge right ahead before I lost my nerve. “Nathaniel, what happened between the two of us…”

  He put his hand on my lips. “What I said to you still stands. I want you to choose me. I do not wish to be a dirty secret.”

  “I understand,” I said, although part of me wanted to keep him as just that, if only so I could satisfy the unreasoning lust that had appeared when I’d kissed him the first time. “I just want you to know that I’m not ready to make that choice.”

  Nathaniel rubbed his thumb over my mouth. “Then I will have to convince you,” he said, and replaced his hand with his lips.

  As soon as he kissed me it was like I was falling again, falling into a mad abyss where I didn’t care about anything except Nathaniel, Nathaniel’s touch, Nathaniel’s heat. I could sense the same madness on him, as his mouth became more insistent, more demanding. His hands moved over me, and it seemed I moved inevitably toward him, that there was only one way this could end.

  He pulled away, rested his forehead against mine. “Madeline. I cannot control myself around you.”

  “I know,” I said, moving reluctantly away and rising from the bed. “Whatever this is, it seems to get stronger the more we…do stuff.”

  The corners of his mouth quirked upward at my phrasing, but he sobered quickly. “I cannot tell if this is the normal course of intense attraction, or if there is another factor at work here.”

  “Do you think someone put us under a love spell?” I was pretty much grasping at straws here.

  “To what end? Who would benefit from our joining?”

  “Maybe someone who wants me to be distracted.”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “It does not have the sense of a love spell. Everything goes back to the moment when our powers combined. It was as if your magic unlocked something inside me. Since that moment I have felt stronger, more powerful. I have abilities I did not have before. And I sense something more, something untapped beneath the surface.”

  He was coming into the legacy of his bloodline. I understood how he felt. I’d gone through this when Lucifer’s powers had manifested inside me, and I think the full magnitude of that magic still had not fully presented itself.