Black Heart

by Christina Henry

  I stopped short and pulled Beezle off my shoulder, settling him in one of my palms so I could look him in the eye. “It’s not dark side. I’m trying to help that kid.”

  “Help him by wrecking his house? Didn’t someone else just do that to you?”

  “Yes, they did,” I said. “And I am grateful that it was only the house that burned, and not me, or my loved ones. What do you think would happen to Dabrowski if he had eavesdropped on one of my conversations with Lucifer? Or if he had stumbled upon one of the fae? What do you think Focalor would do to Dabrowski if he caught him spying?”

  “He’d have his head ripped from his shoulders,” Beezle said reluctantly.

  “Yes,” I said. “Unceremoniously and without warning. He’s all excited because his lifelong theories have been proven true. But he’s messing around in things he doesn’t understand. The supernatural world is no place for a mortal.”

  “So you’re protecting him,” Beezle said.

  “And myself,” I said. “I can’t do what needs to be done if I’m being trailed by a band of groupies.”

  “And what needs to be done?” Beezle asked. “Seems to me like you’re a soldier without a war at the moment. You wiped out those bug-things that were supposedly going to invade. Daharan is taking care of the Agency/Retriever problem. The vampires are gone and the humans are learning how to play nice with things they don’t understand.”

  “There’s still the pending problem of Lucifer and Evangeline’s child,” I reminded him. “And the fact that Titania probably still wants to kill me for defying her several times in a row.”

  “Oh, she does,” Beezle assured me. “My contacts in the court have told me that she curses your name several times a day, particularly now that Bendith has left.”

  “Bendith left his mother’s court?” I said.

  That was interesting. I returned Beezle to my shoulder and continued walking north on Lincoln. We passed by Wishbone, a southern-cooking restaurant that always had delicious smells wafting out. The odd mixture of middle-class professionals and low-income students with a penchant for organic eating came and went from the Whole Foods across the street. Sweaty-faced gym-goers emerged from the YMCA. Everything seemed normal, like there had never been a crisis at all.

  I remembered going to the YMCA once. I’d had to collect a soul there. I’d also made a grand pronouncement about losing thirty pounds and a noisy commitment to regular exercise. That hadn’t happened. The only regular exercise I got was swinging my sword arm.

  “Yes, Bendith was particularly close to Oberon,” Beezle said, drawing me back to the conversation. “So when he found out that his mother had betrayed his father by sleeping with Puck, he got pretty upset. I guess he wanted to bring Oberon with him when he departed the court but Titania forbade it.”

  “But she couldn’t stop him from leaving,” I said.

  “No, she couldn’t. It was probably better for her, in any case. He’d been stirring up the courtiers, speaking out against her.”

  “And there’s already a segment of the court that doesn’t fully support her, right?” I said, recalling something Beezle had told me long ago, before my first visit to Titania’s realm.

  Beezle nodded. “So while Bendith’s departure was a blow to her authority, it probably was better than the alternative.”

  “Having her son lead a rebellion against her?” I guessed.

  “Exactly.”

  “And she’d like to lay all of this at my door,” I said. “Why do I get blamed for everything?”

  “It’s so much easier to blame you than it is for Titania to admit that perhaps she shouldn’t have made her husband a cuckold,” Beezle said. “Look, there’s Dinkel’s.”

  “You just had deep-dish pizza. You’re not getting a pastry on top of it.”

  “You have change in your pocket. I know you do,” Beezle said.

  “So Titania will probably try to kill me again soon—that’s what you’re saying?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

  Beezle stared longingly across the street at the piles of sweets in the bakery window as we passed.

  “No,” I repeated.

  “You’re no fun anymore,” Beezle said.

  “Do you know where Bendith went after he left Titania?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Beezle said. “It’s like he disappeared into the ether.”

  “Do you think she might have had him killed?” I asked, alarmed. I didn’t want one of Puck’s children murdered. I would probably get blamed somehow. Plus, Nathaniel seemed attached to Bendith. They were half brothers, after all.

  “Nah, he’s her only son,” Beezle said.

  “My father tried to kill me,” I reminded him.

  “Titania only has the one child, and it’s difficult for the fae to breed. Presumably she would cherish him more, even when he was being disobedient. Your father had other children, so it wasn’t such a big deal to him to get rid of one,” Beezle said.

  “Another child,” I said.

  “Other children,” Beezle repeated.

  I stopped in the middle of the street again and glared at Beezle. “Really? Really? You’re dropping this on me now?”

  “What?” Beezle asked. “I always thought you would assume that Azazel had other kids. The fallen boink pretty much anyone willing that they can find. And as you discovered, all they have to do is look at a woman suggestively and she gets pregnant.”

  I gritted my teeth and summoned up all of my patience. I had considered the possibility that Azazel might have other kids. But it was one thing to have a suspicion and another to have that suspicion confirmed by someone who should have informed me sooner. “Do you know the identity of any of these children?”

  “No, not offhand,” Beezle said. “But they’re sure to be out there, lurking. Some of them may even be angry with you for killing your father.”

  “That’s just great,” I said. “Another nebulous threat that will manifest at the least opportune moment.”

  “Yup, when you least expect it,” Beezle said cheerfully.

  “Do you care at all about the possibility that I have siblings who might show up to kill me sometime in the near future?”

  Beezle waved a little clawed hand in dismissal. “Nah. I’m sure you could take them.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be touched by your confidence or worried about your cavalier attitude toward my health and well-being,” I said.

  “Look, you killed Ramuell. After coming back from the dead, no less,” Beezle said, ticking points off on his fingers. “You defeated Baraqiel. You survived the Maze and the Grimm. You found out who was stealing memories and you massacred a whole bunch of demons and giant spiders along the way. You beat Amarantha and Violet in a fight to the death. You killed the Hob, Antares and Azazel, who was not the least of the fallen. You wiped out an entire population of vampires, for crying out loud. You unlocked your magical legacy from Lucifer and now there isn’t a whole lot out there that’s stronger than you. I’m absolutely certain that if some mysterious brother or sister showed up, you could take them down without blinking.”

  It was fairly horrible to hear a list of creatures that I had killed recited like Beezle was naming a few of his favorite things. In every case I’d either been protecting the greater population of humanity from a dire threat or just trying not to get slaughtered myself. But when all the incidents were listed out like that, one thing became pretty apparent.

  I was a killer. No matter how you prettied it up, no matter how much I tried to justify it, I was a killer. And with that much blood on my hands, how could I not go dark side?

  My hand covered the bulge in my belly. What would my son think of a mother who killed demons instead of baking brownies?

  I’d been walking on autopilot, and therefore found myself back in front of the charred ruin of my house.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “No home to go to.”

  I sat down on the sidewalk and crossed my legs.
>
  “It’s kind of depressing, isn’t it?” Beezle said.

  “Kind of,” I said. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  A voice spoke from the darkness. “Why, go home with me, of course.”

  12

  I CAME TO MY FEET SO SUDDENLY THAT BEEZLE LOST his balance and fell off my shoulder. He fluttered in an irritated way beside me. J.B. emerged from a shadow beside a tree farther down the street.

  “J.B.?” I squinted my eyes at him. I’d been fooled by demons’ masks before. My hands curled into fists, and I readied my power.

  He halted his approach, holding up his hands in a sign of surrender. The streetlight glinted off the metal rims of his glasses.

  “Maddy, it’s me,” he said. “Don’t blast me into oblivion.”

  Beezle gave J.B. a good hard stare. I knew he was checking all the layers of reality to make sure that it was actually my former boss standing there and not something pretending to be him. I felt acutely vulnerable standing near the ruins of my house, knowing that a threshold would keep me safe from those kinds of attacks. If it was a demon disguised as J.B. and I was in the house, all I would have to do was make sure not to invite him in. But without the threshold I’d have to engage in a fight with anything that wanted to have a go at me.

  After a very long moment, Beezle said, “It’s him.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief and started toward him, then stopped. The last time I’d seen J.B. we had said some very ugly things to each other. Yes, he had called me later and tried to warn me about the Retrievers, but the argument we had seemed to hang in the air, echoing in the space between us.

  “Maddy,” he said, and I heard the hoarseness in his voice, could see the telltale gleam of unshed tears in his green eyes. “I thought you were dead.”

  “How could you believe anything Sokolov would tell you?” I said. “You know he’s a liar. You know how much he hates me.”

  J.B. took a tentative step toward me, shoved his hands in his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them.

  “I thought he wouldn’t be able to lie about a death,” J.B. said. “It’s a bureaucracy. Paper is sacred. If it’s written on a piece of paper, then it must be true.”

  I laughed, despite everything. “Not everyone is as honest as you.”

  “I’m not even as honest as me,” J.B. said, referring to the argument we’d had on the beach. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about what the Agency knew of Lucifer and his plans.”

  “You could have saved me a lot of grief,” I said.

  “And myself, too,” J.B. said. “I mourned you.”

  I almost unbent then, almost ran to him and embraced him. But there was an awkwardness between us that hadn’t been there before. It would take a long time to mend this tear.

  “I am sorry you had to go through that,” I said, and despite everything, I was sorry. It’s a horrible thing to lose someone to death, and I knew that better than anyone. “How did you know that I was back?”

  J.B. jerked a thumb in the direction of the downtown offices of the Agency. “Your uncle showed up.”

  “What did he do?” I asked, a little afraid of the answer.

  “He menaced,” J.B. said. “And then Sokolov invited him up to the boardroom to talk to certain members of upper management.”

  I peered in the general direction of the offices. “Well, I haven’t seen a fireball exploding into the sky, so presumably he hasn’t blown the whole place up with everyone inside.”

  “He’s going to make sure they call off the Retrievers,” J.B. said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “How do you do it?” J.B. said. “How can you break every rule there ever was and get away with it?”

  “First of all, I don’t break them on purpose. Second of all, I don’t get away with anything, believe me. Whatever I do, I always pay for it. Always.”

  Silence fell again. Beezle cleared his throat significantly. “So, you were going to give us a place to sleep?”

  J.B. looked like he’d dropped into deep thought, and he shook his head like he was coming out of a fog. “Uh, yeah. It’s going to be a little crowded with Nathaniel and Bendith there, too, but we’ll make it work.”

  “You have Nathaniel and Bendith with you?” I asked. “How did that happen?”

  “Nathaniel had nowhere to go once the house was burned down and we thought you were dead. He didn’t feel right returning to Lucifer’s court now that he’s been revealed as Puck’s son.”

  “Yeah, that would not have been a good idea. Lucifer and Puck seem like they’re unreasonable about one another.”

  “And then Bendith tracked Nathaniel down, because he left his mother’s court—”

  “We know,” Beezle said in a bored voice.

  “You do?”

  “Beezle’s on Facebook,” I said. “So Bendith tracked down Nathaniel, and?”

  “And he wanted to stay with his brother, and I didn’t have the heart to turn him away,” J.B. said. “Especially now that he’s more vulnerable away from Titania’s court.”

  “Has he got fae assassins coming after him or something?”

  “Yes, exactly,” J.B. said.

  “I thought Titania wouldn’t kill her own child,” I said accusingly to Beezle.

  “She wouldn’t,” Beezle said. “It’s got to be Titania’s enemies trying to punish her.”

  “That’s what I think,” J.B. said. “But we’ve got him pretty well hidden. Right now they think he’s just disappeared into thin air.”

  “How did you hide him?” I asked.

  “It was some pretty nifty magic on Nathaniel’s part,” J.B. admitted. “Nathaniel combined his blood with Bendith’s and then used magic to disguise Bendith’s essence with his own. So if anyone tries to track Bendith magically, they’ll come up empty. The only power signature he exerts now is Nathaniel’s.”

  “That is some powerful magic,” Beezle said. “And it’s a lot like what Michael the archangel did all those millennia ago, to disguise Lucifer’s children and his bloodline through Evangeline so thoroughly that even the Prince of Darkness himself would not be able to find them.”

  “Nathaniel’s pretty frightening, actually,” J.B. said. “He’s got an unbelievable amount of power now. The only thing that’s holding him in check is you.”

  “Me?” I said. “What have I got to do with it?”

  “When someone they love dies, men respond in one of two ways. They smash everything in sight, or they break inside. Nathaniel broke. And if he hadn’t, there probably wouldn’t be a city for you to return to, because he could level Chicago with a look.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why would Nathaniel think I was dead? He sent me through the portal so I would be safe. He knew where I went.”

  J.B. shook his head. “Actually, he didn’t know where you went. It seemed he was taking telepathic instructions from Puck and he wasn’t really thinking at the time. He assumed that Puck didn’t mean you harm, so he did what his father said. Then I came home with the news that Sokolov had been crowing about your death at work. Nathaniel believed you had died in the place where he sent you.”

  “You know, I used to think you guys were smart,” I said. “And you’re both pretty powerful. So how did you get fooled by such a simple ruse?”

  “Someone was making sure they were fooled,” Beezle said.

  I nodded. “That’s what I think, too. And there’s only a few characters that have that kind of power.”

  “Alerian, Daharan, Lucifer and Puck,” Beezle said. “Titania and Oberon. Probably a few others. But those are the usual suspects.”

  “So we have to figure out why one of the usual suspects wanted everyone to think I was dead, and then went to the trouble of laying out a spell to make sure that nobody questioned it.”

  “Welcome home to your newest conspiracy!” Beezle chirped.

  “Someone wanted me out of the way,” I said.


  “Lots of creatures want you out of the way,” J.B. said. “The trouble is narrowing it down.”

  “Let’s see,” I said, tapping my finger on my chin. “Puck sent me to an alien world, and went to the trouble of making sure I stayed there to kill off an entire population. I vote for Puck.”

  “Daharan was there, too,” Beezle reminded me. “Who’s to say he’s not in on the conspiracy?”

  I shook my head. “Daharan wouldn’t do that to me.”

  “How do you know?” J.B. asked.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Maddy . . .” J.B. began.

  “No,” I said. “Don’t say that I’m being naïve, or that I just met him. I know.”

  “Don’t argue with her,” Beezle stage-whispered. “She’s pregnant.”

  “Pregnant doesn’t equal brain damaged,” I said. “Or deaf.”

  “Puck could also be doing work for Titania,” J.B. pointed out. “He said he was acting of his own accord, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Yeah, and Titania is highly motivated to get rid of you,” Beezle said. “Plus, the whole thing kind of has the feel of a faerie plot, doesn’t it? They’re always putting you in a new game board and watching to see if you get killed.”

  “You think Titania told Puck to send me to that place, and Puck used Nathaniel as his vessel because my uncle knew I would trust him?”

  “That’s faerie logic at work right there,” J.B. said. “Titania wants you dead, but she would prefer that the actual bloodletting be done by someone else.”

  “And Puck tried to throw me off the scent by saying that Titania didn’t want him there, that she was planning on using the Cimice for mass destruction?”

  Beezle nodded. “She probably wanted the Cimice dead for some queenly reason of her own and decided to use you to take care of them for her.”

  “So, worst-case scenario—I kill off a bunch of her enemies. Best case—I kill off her enemies and die in the process,” I said.

  “Sounds about right,” Beezle said.

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said. “Something’s not fitting together here. I met one of the Cimice. It beheaded a woman right under the Southport El platform in the middle of the day and I chased it down and killed it. And before I killed it, it told me that it was the vanguard of millions and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”