Black City (A BLACK WINGS NOVEL)

by Christina Henry

  “Let him go,” I said. “Hasn’t he suffered enough abuse at your hands?”

  “You won’t hurt this body,” Amarantha said confidently. It was disturbing to hear her speaking with J.B.’s voice. “I can do whatever I like with you and you cannot defend yourself.”

  She blasted at me again. I was lucky her aim was crappy, because otherwise that blast would have hit me square in the chest.

  “We have to get her out of J.B.,” I said to Nathaniel.

  “Yes,” he said. “But we have another problem.”

  He pointed toward the east. A vanguard of Agents was flying toward us, led by Bryson, and carrying weapons. Apparently Bryson just wasn’t scared enough by my little performance on the bridge a few days before.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, exasperated. Amarantha tried knocking me out of the sky again, and I avoided it once more. “Sokolov really has a lot of time on his hands.”

  “I will take care of the Agents,” Nathaniel said.

  “Don’t kill them,” I warned.

  “Bryson would kill you in an instant,” Nathaniel said.

  “Don’t kill them,” I said. “They’re following orders.”

  I turned my attention on Amarantha. I was pretty sure I could get her out of J.B.’s body if I could just get ahold of her. But she was right. I wouldn’t willingly hurt him, so I couldn’t just blast her out.

  I flew toward her, building up speed. Her eyes widened. I don’t think she expected me to charge her.

  But she acted exactly as I hoped she would. She ran. Amarantha had never been one to stand and fight on her own. She hid behind monsters, behind underlings, behind protocol and politics. She had never engaged me in battle, although legend had it that she led an army once. If so, there was nothing left of that woman when I met her. Amarantha was not a warrior.

  J.B.’s wings carried her over the rooftops, away from the sounds of battle and gunfire that were now coming from the air above my yard. I hoped that Nathaniel would be all right. I hoped that he would not have to kill any of the Agents and thus give Sokolov yet another excuse to come for me.

  She headed toward the lake. The surface of the water churned, mysterious and dark, and I felt the presence of Alerian once more.

  I sped up, grabbing J.B.’s ankle. Amarantha tried to shake me off, to blast me in the face with her magic. I turned J.B.’s body upside down and shook it, and several tokens fell from his pockets to the beach below.

  “No!” she shrieked. I knew then that she couldn’t access J.B.’s own magic inside his body. She needed Greenwitch’s charms to perform a spell. I lowered to the sand, dropping J.B. somewhat unceremoniously.

  I saw the charms a few feet away, scattered on the ground, visible in the light from the streetlamps that lit the lakefront path. Amarantha scrambled for them, but I did what I did best.

  I set them on fire.

  There was a small explosion, a puff of red smoke as the spells dissipated into the air.

  Amarantha fell to her knees, pulling on J.B.’s hair. I walked up behind her, clapped my hands on his face, and sent my power inside him. I chased her screaming through his blood, all the way to his heart.

  She paused there, and squeezed. I could sense her smile.

  J.B. coughed, his hand going to his chest.

  “Enough,” I said, and sent more power inside his body. I needed to be careful. I could blast J.B. apart with the force of my magic, even as I was trying to save him.

  Amarantha was a black shade on his heart, wrapping herself around and around him, smothering him.

  I heard J.B. gasping. Brute force wasn’t working. I couldn’t blast my way out of this one.

  I tried to think. Amarantha was a ghost. What could destroy a ghost?

  Nothing, I thought hopelessly. You cannot, by definition, kill something that is already dead.

  But perhaps I didn’t need to. Once an Agent, always an Agent.

  Instead of blasting Amarantha out of J.B.’s body, I called her name.

  Amarantha.

  I put the force of my will behind it, like I did when I was separating a soul from its body with my Agent’s magic.

  Come to me, I said, and she uncoiled like a reptile, releasing J.B.’s heart. I was the charmer and she the snake. I kept my focus on her, drawing her on, drawing her out.

  A silver mist rose from J.B.’s skin, and Amarantha emerged, spellbound.

  J.B. fell forward in the sand. I let Amarantha go.

  I came to my knees beside him, turned him over. “J.B.? J.B.?”

  He lay so still.

  “J.B.!” I shouted, shaking him.

  He coughed once, twice, and opened his eyes. “I liked the way you woke me up the last time better.”

  I laughed and wiped my eyes.

  “Are you crying?” he asked, reaching up to stroke my cheek.

  “Nah,” I said. “I got sand in my eyes.”

  I didn’t say that when Amarantha was squeezing his heart, I’d felt my own heart about to burst from grief. I didn’t say that for a moment I thought I’d lost him, too, like I’d lost Gabriel.

  I looked around, realized Amarantha had escaped.

  “Dammit,” I said. “I wanted to follow her and find out where she’s keeping her hidey-hole. She’s been working with Therion. She’s probably the one who enspelled the hospital for the vampires. She found Antares’ stash of magical stuff from his mother.”

  J.B. sat up, rubbing his head. “That explains a lot. She gave me one hell of a headache. Hey, you have wings again. Fancy shiny ones. How did you get those.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. One I would never tell. You do not tell a man who has proposed to you that you got brand-spanking-new powers by being intimate with another man on your dining room floor.

  I helped J.B. to his feet. “Do you remember anything from when she possessed you? Maybe the location of her secret base?”

  He shook his head, wincing. “No. The last thing I remember I was in my office, reading a memo from Sokolov about you…”

  He trailed off, staring at me. “A memo that said you had taken a soul from the other side of the Door and returned it to the living.”

  “Don’t lecture me,” I said. “I didn’t have any choice.”

  “You know, I seem to recall Nathaniel saying something similar about his role in the rebellion. And you were very adamant that there’s always a choice. So I’m sure that you could have made a better one,” J.B. said angrily.

  “Not if you’re Lucifer’s Hound of the Hunt,” I said. “You were standing right there when he gave me the second-crappiest job I’ve ever had in my life. This was my choice—I could either fetch Evangeline and their unborn child under my own power, or I could wait for him to compel me to do it.”

  It was hard to tell in the streetlight, but I think all the blood drained out of J.B.’s face. “Evangeline? You restored Evangeline?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And yes, she’s pregnant.”

  “I know she’s pregnant,” J.B. said. “We’ve been keeping tabs on Lucifer’s activities. You don’t think a conception beyond the Door would go unnoticed by the Agency, do you?”

  Now it was my turn to be angry. “If you were keeping tabs on him, then why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you stop him? I got a letter of warning just for accidentally straying into the land of the dead during a dream. Lucifer’s been doing a lot worse for months.”

  “Do you really think the Agency is going to send Lucifer a letter of warning? They don’t want to attract his attention, and rightly so. He might decide to destroy the whole Agency on a whim.”

  “But why didn’t you say anything to me about it?” I asked. “Don’t you think that information would have been useful to me, given that he is my grandfather?”

  “We didn’t see any reason to say anything about it.”

  “Who is ‘we’?” I said. “You and Sokolov? Are you guys buddies now?”

  “No,” J.B. said. “There
are other managers and executives besides Sokolov, you know. And he’s not very well liked generally, but he’s got powerful connections with the people who matter.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me about Lucifer and Evangeline?” I persisted.

  “The consensus was that nobody needed to worry about it as long as Evangeline stayed put. We didn’t think that even Lucifer would try to remove her.”

  “He didn’t,” I said. “I did.”

  “And that was something we didn’t anticipate,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “But now that you have…Maddy, you have to leave.”

  “Leave where? Chicago?”

  “This universe,” J.B. said. “If you can travel to the land of the dead, then you can cross to another world. You’ve got to get away before Sokolov discovers what you’ve done.”

  “I’m not going to be a fugitive for the rest of my life,” I said. “If he wants to come for me, let him.”

  I’d relish the opportunity to take Sokolov out. He’d tortured J.B., and for that I could never forgive him.

  “It’s not Sokolov that will come for you. It’s the Retrievers,” J.B. said.

  As he said the name of those creatures, it seemed that the wind echoed him—Retrievers, Retrievers, Retrievers.

  “I’m not scared of the Retrievers,” I said. “You don’t even know what kind of shit I’ve seen. Or what kind of power I have now.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” J.B. said. “The Retrievers are the final resort. Nobody is immune.”

  “Then why didn’t you send the Retrievers after Lucifer once he started sneaking past the Door?” I said.

  “I think what it comes down to is that upper management doesn’t want to tangle with Lucifer,” J.B. said. “They’re still smarting from the attack by Ramuell and Antares. They know Lucifer is more powerful than either of those creatures were.”

  “But it’s okay to tangle with me?” I said suspiciously. “You seem to know a lot about Lucifer all of a sudden. More than I do, actually. And I’m wondering why you never told me any of this before.”

  “It was need-to-know,” J.B. said.

  “Don’t give me that Agency line,” I said. “I thought we were past that. I thought that we were friends.”

  J.B. was silent, and in that silence I figured out why he’d never told me any of this.

  “You don’t trust me,” I said.

  “I do,” J.B. protested. “But upper management doesn’t.”

  “No,” I said, hurt beyond reason. “You don’t trust me, not really. Because if you did, you would have told me all of this no matter what upper management said.”

  “Maddy…”

  “No,” I said, cutting him off. “You stood in front of me less than two weeks ago and said that you loved me. If you love me, then you trust me. And it’s obvious you don’t.”

  “Don’t try telling me about love,” J.B. said angrily. “Your husband died less than a month ago and you’ve been climbing all over Nathaniel ever since.”

  The urge to slap him in the face was strong, but I resisted. “I don’t owe you anything. If anything, you owe me. I’ve saved your life more times than I can count in the last week.”

  “Keeping score, like your grandfather?” J.B. said. “You’re becoming more like Lucifer every day.”

  I couldn’t believe it had come to this, that we were standing on the beach in the middle of January cutting each other to ribbons. I was losing him, too. Maybe I’d already lost him. But the gulf between us seemed too wide to cross.

  “I am nothing like Lucifer,” I said through my teeth.

  “Could have fooled me,” J.B. said.

  “Then go,” I said, pointing to the sky. “Get your own damned self home. I hope you can avoid being kidnapped by faeries or possessed by your mother without someone to watch you.”

  J.B.’s face was purple with anger now. “Someday, someone is going to give you your comeuppance. I just hope I’m there to see it.”

  And then he was gone. Like everyone else. Everyone except Nathaniel.

  I crossed my arms and turned toward the lake. The wind was cold. I was abruptly aware that my sleeves were still rolled up from my trek through the desert with Evangeline, and that I wore nothing except a T-shirt and jeans. My hair had come out of its braid somewhere along the way and it whipped and curled in the breeze. Just like Evangeline’s.

  I let myself have a cry. I deserved it. Everyone I’d thought would stand by me was gone. And now that I was alone, I started to doubt myself. Could I have made different choices? Could I have avoided becoming further embroiled in Lucifer’s machinations?

  No matter how I replayed the last four months, it seemed that the only choices I could have made were the ones that I did. From the moment Ramuell had killed Patrick to the moment that led me here, there wasn’t anything else I could have done. At least, I didn’t see how.

  Nathaniel landed on the beach beside me. I jumped about four feet in the air.

  “Are you crazy?” I said. “What’s with the ninja act?”

  “I am sorry,” he said, smiling a little. “I did not think to announce my presence.”

  “Next time bring a bullhorn,” I said. “I could have taken your head off.”

  “You were not even holding your sword,” Nathaniel said. “What has become of J.B. and Amarantha?”

  I gave him an edited version of events, leaving out the details of my argument with J.B. Nathaniel seemed to read between the lines, though he didn’t say anything.

  “What happened at the house? You didn’t kill Bryson, did you?” I said.

  “No,” Nathaniel said. “All of the Agents were safely returned to the Agency. They are not happy, but they are not harmed.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I took away their weapons, tied them up and then deposited them on the Agency’s front step,” Nathaniel said. “Then I followed you here.”

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  Nathaniel caressed my cheek. “I would be able to find you even if you crossed all the worlds, Madeline. The spell we performed, the one that bound our powers—it bound us together. Can you not feel it?”

  I could, but I’d thought it was nothing more than lust. Now I knew it was more than that, that Nathaniel and I were connected on a deeper level than I realized. He would always be with me, and I with him.

  He bent his head to mine, kissed me, and as our passion surged so did our power. A pulse of magic emitted from our entwined bodies.

  And a pulse answered us.

  We broke apart, staring at the lake. Far out, beyond the breakers, the water was bubbling and surging. Something big was rising up.

  “Alerian,” I breathed.

  I took a step backward, and so did Nathaniel. He grabbed my hand and held it tight. The water was rising up into a column, and there was a sense that something of impossible size was beneath the water. Green mist rose from the surface of the lake once more, except this time it poured off in a continual fog.

  That fog didn’t stay confined to the lake but drifted out to the sand, onto the path, onto Lake Shore Drive and beyond. The drive was silent, the cars still abandoned. The city had not even begun to rebuild itself yet, and here was another monster.

  A huge tentacle emerged from the column of water. It lashed the breakers, smashing the rock into a million tiny pieces. The creature surged forward, emerging from the column and moving toward the shore. Everywhere I looked there were arms, huge squid-like arms. The rest of his body was still submerged, and I sincerely hoped it stayed that way. If I saw all of him, I might start gibbering.

  “That’s Alerian?” I said faintly.

  “Bit of a show-off, isn’t he?” said Lucifer from behind my shoulder. “I’d say he read Lovecraft once and never got over it, but he went to sleep eons before Lovecraft was born.”

  “How did he manage to hide in the lake without anyone ever discovering him?” I said. “He’s enormous.”

  “He doesn�
�t have to stay that size,” Puck said from the other side of Nathaniel. “As my dear brother says, Alerian is a show-off. He’s displaying his true form for no other reason than he can.”

  I looked askance at Puck. “Are you saying that you and Lucifer have forms other than these?”

  Puck winked at me. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  “I don’t really want to know,” I said.

  “I’ll thank you not to wink at my granddaughter,” Lucifer said.

  Puck leaned around Nathaniel so he could get a good look at Lucifer. I swear I could see the two of them bristling like cats, their tails getting puffy and indignant.

  “She’s my niece,” Puck said. “And Alerian’s.”

  “As Nathaniel is my nephew,” Lucifer said silkily.

  “Stay away from my son,” Puck said.

  “Stay away from my granddaughter,” Lucifer replied.

  “Shut up, the two of you,” I said. “He’s coming out of the water.”

  “You know he’s only rising because of you,” Puck said to Lucifer. “If you had stayed out of the dead world, then he probably would have slept forever.”

  “How do you know it’s not your fault?” Lucifer said. “The awakening of Nathaniel’s power would have been just as noticeable as anything I did.”

  “I noticed Madeline has some lovely new wings,” Puck said.

  “Stop trying to pin this on me,” Lucifer said. “We’ll both have to deal with him now, whoever is responsible.”

  The first enormous tentacle slapped onto the shore. Nathaniel and I scooted back a little farther, until our feet scraped the surface of the bike path.

  Puck and Lucifer walked forward, although they were both careful to keep a sufficient amount of distance between them. The only sibling hatred that I knew of to rival theirs was Antares’ hatred of me. I was sure the only thing that stopped the two of them from actively trying to kill each other was some arcane law of the universe that bound them.

  A second tentacle followed the first. The majority of Alerian’s body was still far from shore. That’s how big he was. His tentacles were slapping up on the beach and most of him was still submerged several feet out in the deeper water. He stopped moving as Lucifer and Puck approached.