Black Howl bw-3

by Christina Henry

  Most of my life had been defined by my duties as an Agent, but lately it seemed like tending to the souls of the dead was at the bottom of my priority list. Now I spent most of my time trying not to become a dead soul myself.

  “C’mon, you know you want a cinnamon roll,” Beezle whined.

  I stood up, stretched and realized I’d slept in my clothes from the day before. There was probably rock dust all over my sheets.

  “I don’t have time to make a junk-food run for you today, Beezle,” I said, going into the closet to change into my robe. I needed a shower.

  “Why? What do you have to do that’s so important?”

  I stuck my head out and glared at him. “Oh, gee, I don’t know. I have to find Wade. I have to figure out what’s causing the ghost problem. I’ve got some fences to mend with Gabriel and, oh, yeah, Lucifer showed up last night to tell me that Samiel’s trial is tomorrow.”

  Beezle looked alarmed. “What? Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

  “Why?” I asked. “What’s the problem?”

  “You don’t think that the Grigori are just going to let you saunter into court with Samiel tomorrow, do you?”

  Beezle sped out of the room. I hurriedly pulled my robe on and followed him. Beezle was right. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it. To the Grigori, Samiel was a criminal, and he would be treated as such.

  Samiel sat on the couch in the front room doing a sudoku puzzle. He wore a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants. His golden hair was rumpled from sleep. He looked just like any college student relaxing on a Saturday morning—that was, except for the wings. He looked up in puzzlement as Beezle landed on his knee.

  That was when the light shining through the picture window disappeared. My eyes widened. The biggest angel I had ever seen hung suspended in the air just beyond the glass, his enormous white wings blocking out the sun.

  7

  THE ANGEL WORE A FULL SUIT OF ARMOR FROM THE neck down, and his eyes blazed with a strange red light.

  “Metatrion,” Beezle said.

  The angel opened his mouth to speak, and his voice shook the walls of the building. Books tumbled from their shelves. Furniture scraped across the floor.

  I grabbed the archway between the living room and the dining room for support as dust rained down from the ceiling. Samiel stumbled away from the window to join me. Beezle landed on my shoulder. We all stared at the apparition just beyond the glass.

  “Samiel ap Ramuell,” Metatrion boomed. “You are called before the court of the Grigori to be charged for your crimes against the laws of Lucifer’s kingdom. You will present yourself before me to be brought to holding, or else face the consequences of your defiance.”

  The building stopped shaking once Metatrion stopped speaking. Samiel looked at me in confusion.

  I quickly explained what Lucifer had told me the night before. Metatrion still hung outside the window like a looming portent of doom.

  I should go out to him, Samiel signed.

  “No way,” I said fiercely. “I won’t have you brought before the Grigori in chains.”

  But the trial is going to happen no matter what.

  “Yeah, and I’ll be the one to bring you. I told you I’d keep you safe, and I will. I won’t let the Grigori punish you for your father’s crimes.”

  What about mine? He picked up my left hand.

  “Like I told Lucifer, if it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother them. Besides, it’s supposed to grow back.” I glared at the place where the missing digits had been like I could make them grow back with just my force of will. “Anyway, Skippy there can’t get in without my permission.”

  “Ummm, about that…” Beezle began.

  Metatrion narrowed his eyes like he’d heard me. Then he drew back his fist and punched it through the front picture window—a thing that he should not have been able to do. I could see his hand very clearly cross the border of the building.

  I shouted in anger and blasted nightfire as Metatrion pulled the broken shards away from the point of impact. The nightfire bounced harmlessly off Metatrion’s armor as he climbed through the window. I took Samiel’s hand and tugged him backward as Metatrion stalked toward us.

  I tried to blast the angel with the same spell that I’d used in the cave, but again the armor seemed to dissipate its effects. I could only conclude that it was impervious to any kind of magic.

  “Cheater,” I muttered as we backed through the dining room.

  Samiel picked up one of the dining chairs and heaved it at the giant angel. They are oak, and heavy, and have been in my mother’s family for generations. Metatrion caught the chair before it hit him and snapped the frame in half as easily as if he were breaking a tree branch.

  Lucifer’s sword lay on the side table next to the front door with my keys and cell phone. I picked up the sword and pushed Samiel behind me. Metatrion paused, staring at the sword.

  I didn’t want to think about how absurd I must look. I was about two feet shorter than Metatrion and wearing nothing but a ratty blue terry-cloth robe. But the pointed tip of the sword was just a few inches from Metatrion’s unarmored throat, and I bet he’d bleed the same as anyone else if I pressed forward.

  “Leave,” I said. “You can’t have Samiel.”

  “I am the Grigori’s Hound of the Hunt,” Metatrion rumbled, and I winced at the close proximity of his voice. It seemed to shake the very cells of my blood. A couple of wineglasses in the cabinet shattered.

  “I am charged with returning Samiel ap Ramuell to the court of the Grigori for his trial. No walls can bind me, and no creature can stop me, not even you, Madeline ap Azazel. I will not cease until the hunt is complete.”

  I stood a little straighter, pushed the blade to his skin. Metatrion’s eyes narrowed.

  “My name is Madeline Black,” I said. “And you cannot have him.”

  “When you are breathing your last breath, remember that you chose this,” Metatrion said, and he closed his hand over the sword. As he did he opened his mouth and gave a primal scream.

  I closed my eyes in pain, keeping a tight grip on the sword. Metatrion tried to bend it or pull it from my grasp; I don’t know which. I wasn’t strong enough on my own to keep my hold on it, but the snake on my palm did not seem to like Metatrion’s behavior and held the handle to my skin like it was magnetized there.

  There was the crunch of breaking glass again, and I opened my eyes. Two more armored angels were coming in through the side windows in the dining room. Samiel desperately shot nightfire from behind me. I heard Gabriel pound up the back stairs and crash through the back door into the kitchen.

  “Madeline!” he called.

  I couldn’t turn. I couldn’t answer. I strained with every muscle in my body to hold the sword, to keep Metatrion from taking it or Samiel.

  Metatrion swung his other hand toward me and closed it around my throat.

  The other angels crashed into Gabriel and Samiel behind me. There were the sounds of grunts and fists pounding into skin. From the corner of my eye I saw Beezle flutter to the opposite side of the room and pick something up.

  My vision started to close as Metatrion squeezed his armored hand around my windpipe. The only thing holding me upright was the sword and the force of will behind it. He would not take Samiel. I’d promised.

  There was a tiny movement behind Metatrion, and Beezle smashed a sharp-edged metal bookend into the angel’s bare head. It could hardly have hurt him, but it distracted him enough that he loosened his grip just a hair, on both my throat and the sword.

  I thrust upward with all my might, and the sword passed cleanly through his neck and to the other side.

  Metatrion’s eyes widened for a moment before the red light in them blinked out. I put my bare foot on his knee and he toppled backward, the blade pulling free and coated in the blood of the Hound of the Hunt.

  I looked up at Beezle, who grinned at me and dropped the bookend to the ground with a clatter.

 
; “Now can I have cinnamon rolls?” he asked.

  “Totally,” I croaked. It hurt to talk.

  I realized suddenly that it was far too quiet and spun around. Gabriel’s boot was just visible at the end of the hallway. Samiel and the other two angels were nowhere to be seen.

  I ran into the kitchen, my heart pounding.

  “Gabriel! Samiel!” I shouted, and then coughed violently.

  Gabriel lay on the floor in front of the refrigerator, his face covered in blood. Just beyond the back counter of my kitchen was a small covered porch that I used as a breakfast nook. The back wall of the nook looked like it had been blasted through with dynamite. The floor was covered in feathers and spattered blood.

  I fell to my knees at Gabriel’s side.

  “Gabriel? Gabriel?” I said, shaking him. There didn’t appear to be any open wounds on him so I assumed it was someone else’s blood.

  After a few moments he blearily opened his eyes.

  “Madeline?” He sat up a little, leaning on his elbows and looking confused.

  I threw my arms around him and held him tight. He hugged me briefly before pushing me away to stare at me somberly.

  “The soldiers of the Hound took Samiel.”

  My shoulders drooped. “I failed him.”

  I was suddenly acutely aware of how Jude must have felt when Wade was taken. I’d made a promise to Samiel that I would keep him safe, and I’d broken that promise.

  “We both did,” Gabriel said. “There was a third soldier here in the kitchen. He surprised, then restrained, me while the other two removed Samiel.”

  I stood and surveyed the ruined mess that had been my kitchen. Samiel was gone. My home was vulnerable to attack. I needed to make it safe again before any one of my dozens of enemies construed an open wall as an invitation.

  “Lucifer could have warned me of this,” I said dully. “He took the time to tell me of the trial. He could have told me that the Grigori would send Metatrion. Why would he be able to break the barrier that protects the house?”

  “He was the Hound of the Hunt,” Beezle said, landing on my shoulder. “He was like a super-duper ultimate supernatural bounty hunter. If the magic of an abode could keep him out, then how could he fulfill his charge from the Grigori? Anything he hunted would be able to hide behind the walls of their home. So he, and he alone, possessed the power to break the barrier without punishment.”

  “Why do you speak of the Hound in past tense?” Gabriel asked warily, rising to his feet.

  I glanced away from the broken wall to Gabriel, who had a braced-for-impact look.

  “Because I killed him,” I said, rubbing my throat.

  Gabriel closed his eyes. “Madeline. You did not.”

  “Yep, she totally did,” Beezle said gleefully. “I helped.”

  “Metatrion has been the Hound of the Hunt since before the Fall. What do you think the Grigori will make of that at Samiel’s trial?” Gabriel said angrily. “Do you think that it will dispose them to think more kindly of Samiel?”

  “I was trying to save Samiel,” I snapped back, my voice little more than a croaky whisper. “And Metatrion would have killed me if he had the chance.”

  “He was strangling her to death before I dropped a bookend on his head,” Beezle said.

  Gabriel turned away, rubbing his face. “I fear there will be consequences for this.”

  “There always are,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. The apartment was freezing in the January cold now that half my windows were open. “What should we do with Metatrion?”

  “Call Lord Azazel,” Gabriel said. “Perhaps if you explain the incident to your father first, it will go better for you tomorrow.”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “First of all, Azazel will be a lot more annoying about this than the rest of the Grigori. He’s always going on about how my actions reflect poorly on him. And he’ll try to use this incident as leverage to make me do something he wants me to do, like marry Nathaniel.”

  “You must contact one of the fallen,” Gabriel said. “They will be furious if you do not return Metatrion’s body to them.”

  “I’d sooner call Lucifer than Azazel. At least Lucifer seems to like me.”

  “Madeline, do not be deceived by Lucifer’s affection for you. If he allows you more leverage than others, it is because he desires something of you.”

  “I’m not stupid, even though you and everyone else insist on acting like I am. I said I’d sooner call Lucifer than Azazel, not that I would.”

  “Then what will you do?” Gabriel asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m going to Azazel’s court tomorrow. I’ll bring Metatrion’s body with me then.”

  “I am not certain that would be a wise decision, particularly when you will be arguing for Samiel’s life. It might be…inflammatory.”

  “Maybe,” I said, thinking of something Lucifer had said the day before. “Or maybe it demonstrates strength. The Grigori respect power.”

  “As long as it does not conflict with theirs,” Gabriel said.

  “Look, let’s just put Metatrion in the basement for now, okay? We need to get these windows covered before we die of hypothermia.”

  “I just hope the neighbors don’t see us putting a body in the basement,” Beezle muttered.

  I snorted. “Are you kidding? They haven’t noticed demons on the front lawn, decaying dragons in the backyard, crazy shapeshifters committing murder in the alley or any of the other insanity that goes on around here. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the house existed in a pocket dimension.”

  “There’s a first time for everything. Demons can be explained away as a hallucination, but no one can ignore a dead body.”

  “Can we just get through this without hearing one of your premonitions of doom?” I said, walking back to the hallway to Metatrion’s prone form.

  I picked up the feet of the dead Hound, and Gabriel took the shoulders.

  “Fine. Don’t listen to me. You’d just better hope that he doesn’t start to smell.”

  Gabriel and I wrestled Metatrion into the basement and covered him with a tarp. It looked totally conspicuous, exactly as if we’d covered a body with a piece of plastic.

  “I’m taking a shower,” I said.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Beezle said as he followed me up the stairs.

  “I haven’t forgotten your reward,” I said, wondering just when I was going to get to Ann Sather for cinnamon rolls with everything else I had to do that day. “I’m not going anywhere until I’m clean.”

  Gabriel walked silently behind. I wondered what he was thinking. Was he thinking of his half brother being taken before the Grigori? Was he thinking that I’d made yet another gigantic faux pas by killing the Hound of the Hunt? Or was he thinking of what had happened before Lucifer had shown up the night before, and what might have happened if the Morningstar hadn’t interfered?

  I knew we needed to talk about it—again—but I had too many other things on my plate at the moment. I wondered how Jude and the pack were managing the cubs. I needed to get those camera things to J.B. They were definitely related to the ghosts that had been appearing all over Chicago. And that reminded me.

  “Beezle, do you know where Samiel put those machines that we got from the cave?”

  Beezle looked offended. “Of course not. You told Samiel to hide them.”

  “Please. You are so freaking nosy there’s no way you could help yourself from following him.”

  “He put them in the clothes dryer in the basement,” Beezle said without a trace of shame. “I suggested the refrigerator, since we never have any food in it…”

  “Because someone who shall remain nameless eats everything as soon as I come home from the grocery store…”

  “But he seemed to think they would be less obvious in the dryer.” Beezle sighed, and I knew that he was worried about Samiel. Ever since Samiel had arrived Beezle had treated Samiel like the brother he’d never had.
/>   “I’ll get him back from the Grigori,” I said.

  Beezle nodded and flew to the front room to sit on the mantel over the fire, his favorite brooding spot. Gabriel followed with a broom to sweep up the broken glass. I went to get dressed, and to cry in the shower where neither of them could hear me.

  I had just finished braiding my hair into a long plait down my back when the front doorbell rang. Beezle flew into the bedroom a few seconds later.

  “It’s J.B.,” he announced.

  “Tell Gabriel to let him in,” I said, pulling my dusty black combat boots on and lacing them up over the ankles of my jeans.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. They have a tendency to act stupid where you’re concerned. And J.B. won’t like the implications of Gabriel answering the door.”

  “I really don’t care what J.B. likes and doesn’t like,” I said. “Just tell Gabriel.”

  “Oookay. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Beezle said.

  I was sure that J.B. was there to bring bad news in any case, since it just seemed like it was going to be that sort of week.

  I finished dressing and walked down the hall to the dining room. J.B. stood in the open front door glaring at Gabriel. Gabriel had his arms crossed and was leaning nonchalantly on the table while giving J.B. death-ray eyes. Beezle sat on the side table, and he turned to raise his eyebrows in an I-told-you-so way as I entered.

  Gabriel had covered the windows with plastic so that we weren’t getting blasted by cold air, but the room was still freezing. I wore a long-sleeved shirt under a gray wool cabled turtleneck sweater—I am branching out from my usual uniform of black—and I was still chilly. I tucked my hands inside my sleeves.

  J.B. broke his staring contest with Gabriel to scowl at me when I entered.

  “Do you want to tell me why we intercepted a nine-one-one call this morning reporting a dead body in your basement?”

  “Ha!” Beezle shouted, pumping his little fist in the air. “I told you that somebody would notice.”

  “What do you mean, you intercepted a call?” I asked. “Am I under surveillance?”