Black Howl bw-3

by Christina Henry

  Lucifer quirked an eyebrow at me, but said nothing. Azazel looked thunderous.

  “How dare you speak to Lord Lucifer thus!” he cried, rising to his feet.

  “That’s nothing. You should hear the way he talks to me,” I retorted.

  “You will not disrespect this court,” Azazel shouted.

  “And you will not treat me like a child to be punished for some imagined infraction. I am not on trial. I am here for Samiel, and I will not leave without him.”

  “You have insulted this court by treating Metatrion with such disrespect.”

  “And you have insulted me by taking my friend from my home by force and bringing me here for a trial that does not appear to be happening.”

  Azazel gave me a look that promised retribution later. I was so not worried about this. Once upon a time—only two short months before—I’d been afraid of him. I’d wanted his respect and his love, the two things I’d never had. But that was before he’d tried to marry me to a man I did not know, before he tried to treat me like another pawn in his power struggle with the other courts. One thing I’d learned very quickly about the fallen was that if you did not assert yourself, they would walk all over you.

  “Very well,” Azazel said. “If it is a trial you wish, then it is a trial you shall have. Bring out the condemned.”

  Two fallen toadies that I hadn’t noticed lurking behind the tall benches went to the front of the room and disappeared into one of the doors there.

  “Condemned?” I muttered under my breath to Gabriel. “That sounds like they’ve already decided.”

  “They very likely have,” he replied in a whisper. “I warned you that the Grigori do not have the same notions of fair play that you do.”

  I’d expected that, but I hadn’t expected them to condemn Samiel before the trial had even begun. It reminded me that my bravado was just that, and that Samiel’s life hung in the balance. It was harder to be cavalier when I considered that the Grigori had already made their minds up.

  “They’re not getting him,” I whispered fiercely. “I promised Samiel. I promised.”

  “Be careful,” J.B. said from my other side. “The more you want, the more they will try to take from you. Just like my mother.”

  Jude stood stiffly on the other side of J.B., glaring up at Lucifer. If looks could kill, the Morningstar would have imploded by now.

  Lucifer, for his part, appeared to be doing an admirable job of ignoring Jude entirely. I was certain that he recognized the wolf—how could he not?—but he was no doubt holding his acknowledgment in reserve unless it served his own purpose.

  I heard a scuffle behind the tall benches.

  A moment later, two guards dressed as Hunt soldiers appeared holding Samiel between them. His hands were bound and he had a few bruises, but those were probably from the incident at my house. He still wore the white T-shirt and gray sweatpants he’d worn the day before. His feet were bare, and this made him look oddly vulnerable.

  He gave me a strained smile when he saw us, and then the guards led Samiel past our group to stand in the middle of the room. The guards stepped away from him to take their places at the foot of the benches. Samiel was alone under the glare of the Grigori’s judgment.

  He lifted his chin and set his shoulders. Good. I was glad that the fallen hadn’t broken his will.

  Azazel stood again. I noticed Nathaniel had taken his place next to Azazel, and that the angel to Nathaniel’s left must be Zerachiel, Nathaniel’s father. He looked like he could be Nathaniel’s twin. Angels don’t seem to age at all after a certain point. I looked older than Lucifer and he had me beat by several thousand years.

  “Samiel ap Ramuell, you have been brought before this tribunal to answer for your crimes. Your crimes will be read out to you and you will acknowledge that which you have done. Then sentencing will be passed upon you.”

  “What about his defense?” I asked loudly.

  Azazel turned a glare upon me as several of the Grigori murmured behind their hands. I was sure that Azazel’s stature among the other fallen was taking a hit every time I talked out of turn. I don’t reflect well on my father’s court, as Nathaniel has so often reminded me.

  “This is not a human court of law,” Azazel said icily. “This is a place of judgment. The Grigori do not hear ‘defense.’”

  “Forget that,” I said. “What did you bring me here for if not to defend Samiel?”

  “You were not brought. You came of your own volition,” said one of the Grigori halfway down the bench.

  “That’s Chezaquiel,” Beezle whispered. Apparently he’d finished his nap.

  “I had no choice but to come. You sent the Hound of the Hunt to break down my walls and take Samiel from my home. If you give Samiel back now, you can have the remains of this loser,” I said, nudging Metatrion with the toe of my boot, “and I’ll just forget the insult that you gave me by sending soldiers into my home.”

  “This creature,” another Grigori said, “is accused of setting free the nephilim Ramuell so that Ramuell could hunt and kill.”

  “That’s Shamsiel,” whispered Beezle.

  “How can you tell them apart?” I said out of the corner of my mouth. Shamsiel looked blond and young just like the rest. The only Grigori that stood out were Azazel, who was dark haired and dark eyed like me, and Focalor, trapped forever in his demon’s body for defying Lucifer. Lucifer had golden hair and black wings—one of the few angels who did.

  “Many innocent lives were lost because of Samiel’s actions,” Shamsiel continued.

  “Please,” I scoffed. “Like any of you give a flying faerie about innocent human lives. If it served your purpose, you’d wipe out every last person on the face of the Earth. I, on, the other hand, do care about the human lives that were taken. And I punished the creature responsible—Ramuell. Samiel shouldn’t be made to pay for the sins of his father.”

  “He released the monster from the Forbidden Lands,” said Zerachiel.

  “And those monsters wouldn’t even exist if the Grigori had kept it in their pants the first time they saw human women,” I said angrily. I have a terrible temper, and I was riding on the edge of it.

  “Real smooth,” J.B. whispered.

  “It is not for you to question the actions of the Grigori,” Azazel shouted.

  “Why not?” I shot back. “Somebody ought to. It seems to me that the lot of you have had your own way for far too long. You want to talk about wrong? It’s wrong of you to condemn an innocent child for the actions of his parents.”

  This was definitely stretching the truth a little bit, but I continued on.

  “Ariell made Samiel release his father from prison. She’s the one who set Ramuell on the world. She used Samiel as one uses a key to open a lock.”

  “Since you speak of the boy’s mother, it should be noted that Samiel should not have been allowed to live a moment past birth. We have already made an exception for a nephilim’s child,” Focalor said silkily.

  I went cold. They would not drag Gabriel into this.

  I narrowed my eyes at Focalor and felt the familiar buildup of magical energy inside me, the power that seemed to rise with my emotions. Everyone in the room stiffened except Lucifer, who smiled. They could feel the magic coming off me in waves.

  “This is not about Gabriel,” I said steadily. “And you should remember the last time we met, Focalor. I would keep my mouth shut if I were you.”

  I was certain that if Focalor were not already bright scarlet, we would see him blushing. He did not like the reminder that the last time he’d competed against me he’d lost—in front of Amarantha’s twittering court.

  “In addition to his other crimes, Samiel harmed you, the daughter of Azazel and the heir to his court. For that alone he must pay a price,” Zerachiel said.

  Everyone in the room stared at the place on my left hand where two fingers were missing. I resisted the urge to stick my hand in my pocket and hide the evidence.

  �
�Samiel and I have an understanding about that and I believe his debt to me has been paid. If I don’t require a blood price from him, then neither should you.”

  “The laws of the kingdom state—” another Grigori began.

  “Stuff your laws!” I shouted, my temper breaking. “This whole thing is a farce. I don’t know why you brought Samiel here but it has nothing to do with the laws of the kingdom.”

  “He must pay for his crimes,” Azazel said.

  “He has committed no crime,” I responded.

  “We believe otherwise.”

  “And you’ve already decided that he’ll pay whether he’s guilty or not. I think that you just want to get rid of Samiel because he is a reminder of your own failures, your own weaknesses.”

  Several angry murmurs broke out at this.

  “Besides,” I continued, “he’s Lucifer’s grandson. Are you really going to kill your lord’s grandson?”

  “People died because of his actions,” Azazel said, but the rest of the Grigori shifted uncomfortably nonetheless.

  It was one thing to view Samiel as a nephilim’s child, quite another to think of him as a close and direct descendant of their highest lord.

  I just hoped Lucifer didn’t decide to remind them that I had already killed two of his children. I glanced up at his face and he gave me a little half smile, like he knew what I was thinking, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Let Samiel go,” I repeated. “I will be responsible for him.”

  Beezle murmured in my ear, “I hope you understand what you’re getting into when you make that promise.”

  “Yeah, a lifetime of the two of you eating me out of house and home,” I replied.

  I knew what it meant when I said I would be responsible for Samiel. It meant that if he put even a fingernail over the line, it would be him and me standing bound before the Grigori next time—if they even bothered with the pretense of a trial before execution.

  Nathaniel leaned over to Azazel and whispered in my father’s ear. All around me the Grigori were speaking behind their hands to one another.

  I didn’t want it to come to this, but I would blast my way out of here with Samiel if I had to. I would not leave him with the Grigori. I think Jude was secretly hoping for an excuse to lunge at Lucifer.

  After several moments in which the Grigori looked like a bunch of kids playing Telephone—“I say kill him; pass it on”—Azazel stood. It seemed he was the voice of the court.

  Lucifer had played no role in the decision-making. It appeared that he had acted only as a witness to the proceedings. Still, I knew that something greater than Samiel’s guilt was at work here. Lucifer was waiting for something.

  “It is the will of this court that Samiel ap Ramuell be remanded into the custody of Lady Madeline Black ap Azazel.”

  I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. I guess the “Lucifer’s grandson” argument had carried some weight.

  “As Samiel’s custodian you will henceforth be responsible for his actions. Should Samiel violate the laws of Lord Lucifer’s kingdom, he shall be condemned to immediate death at the hands of the Hound of the Hunt.”

  I didn’t like the part where Samiel would have to live with the threat of execution for the rest of his life, but it was better than the alternative.

  “I see one small flaw in this decision,” Lucifer said, and the room went unnaturally quiet, like nobody wanted to attract Lucifer’s attention to them. “We no longer have a Hound of the Hunt.”

  Metatrion’s blank eyes accused me.

  “I don’t know why I have to keep saying this, but he was trying to kill me at the time,” I said.

  “And I am sure that it is a comfort to your father as it is a comfort to me that you are so very capable. Still, it does not change the fact that the court has never been without a Hound,” Lucifer said.

  I shrugged, moving forward to Samiel, who was still bound. I wanted to free his hands and get him out of the court before any of the Grigori thought up an objection. I was sure some of them were already busily crafting one.

  “I don’t see how this has anything to do with me or Samiel,” I said.

  “Don’t you?” Lucifer said softly. “The Hound of the Hunt is dead at your hand.”

  I stopped next to Samiel, looking up at Lucifer. Dread washed over me, and I knew that whatever Lucifer had been waiting for had finally arrived.

  “As payment for the death of the Hound of the Hunt, you will take over his duties.”

  The walls were closing around me. Lucifer looked triumphant.

  “As you have taken responsibility for the life of Samiel ap Ramuell, so, too, shall you take responsibility for his death should he violate the laws of the kingdom.

  “As I am the Morningstar, you shall be my dark star, the hand of my will, my bringer of justice.

  “All rise and say hail to my Hound of the Hunt.”

  The Grigori rose. Over the buzzing in my ears I thought I heard a voice speaking in my head—Lucifer’s voice.

  “I thought you told me you knew how to play chess.”

  I’d just been outplayed. Again.

  9

  “I TOLD YOU THERE WOULD BE A PRICE TO PAY,” BEEZLE said for the hundredth time since we’d left Azazel’s court.

  “I know,” I groaned, slumping forward to hide my face in my arms. “How many times are you going to say, ‘I told you so’?”

  “I’m not even close to being done yet,” Beezle said. “You think you’re so smart. You think you can outwit Lucifer. He’s had epochs of practice time.”

  We sat at the kitchen table—Samiel, Gabriel, Beezle and me—and the mood was positively funereal. You wouldn’t think we managed to save Samiel from certain death.

  J.B. had shaken his head at me and gone back to work without a word, while Jude had looked at me like I’d contracted some new and contagious disease that involved blisters and boils before returning to his pack.

  Samiel rapped on the table so that I would look up at him. I’m so sorry. This is my fault.

  “No, it isn’t,” I said heavily. “Lucifer has been looking for an excuse to move me closer to his inner circle, and he took it.”

  “Yeah, but how could he know that you’d kill the Hound of the Hunt? Nobody has ever managed to before,” Beezle said.

  I rubbed my eyes. “He didn’t know that I would do that. But he did know that I wouldn’t let Samiel go without a fight, and I’ll bet anything that Lucifer would have found some way to force me to trade myself for Samiel.”

  “No bet,” Beezle said gloomily. “I wouldn’t gamble against Lucifer.”

  We all stared at the table. After a few minutes, Beezle cleared his throat. “I’d just like to point out that it’s been several hours since any of us have eaten, and that a pepperoni pizza would not go amiss right now.”

  I looked up at Gabriel, whose face spread in a rueful smile. Samiel grinned.

  I laughed and picked up Beezle and pulled him into a hug. His tiny arms went around my neck as he squeezed me for a moment. Then he leaned back and gave me a serious look, his clawed hands on my cheeks.

  “No matter what Lucifer tries to make of you, you are still Maddy Black. Remember that.”

  “I’ll remember,” I promised. “And you’re right. A pepperoni pizza would not go amiss.”

  “Yes!” Beezle said, pumping his little fist in the air. “With mozzarella sticks?”

  “Don’t push your luck,” I said, and went to place the order.

  I wondered if the Hound of the Hunt was a paying position in Lucifer’s court. Probably not. My checking account was dangerously low, as usual. I’d sold a couple of articles in the last month but it can take a long time to get paid for freelance work. Lately, my main source of income was Gabriel’s rent checks, and it seemed like a long time until the first of February.

  After we’d all stuffed ourselves I said, “We’re just going to go on as we were before. If Lucifer thinks I’m going to live at court
because of this Hound of the Hunt business, he is out of his tiny mind.”

  “What of your duties?” Gabriel asked.

  “What of them?” I replied. “I’m sure if Lucifer needs me for something, he’ll let me know. I still have my Agent commitments.”

  “And you promised to help J.B. with ghost-hunting. And you still have to find Wade. I don’t know that there is enough time in the day for you to do all those things and go to the bakery,” Beezle said.

  “I guess I’ll just have to prioritize,” I said dryly. “Speaking of duty and priority, I think I have another pickup tonight.” I patted my pockets like I was going to find my Agent list there.

  “You do, at Addison and Sheffield,” Beezle said.

  “Close to home; that’s nice,” I said. “Wait—how do you know?”

  “J.B. hung your list on your bedroom mirror yesterday.”

  “Well, I don’t know what he was thinking doing that. I never look in the mirror.”

  “Yes, we all can tell,” Beezle said.

  “I will accompany you,” Gabriel said.

  Me, too, Samiel signed.

  “What’s with the protectiveness? I think I can go eight blocks from home by myself.”

  “You made several new enemies today, whether or not you realize it,” Gabriel said. “The Grigori do not like to be thwarted.”

  “That’s swell,” I grumbled. “I can’t even tell most of them apart. How am I supposed to know which one hates me and which one doesn’t?”

  I looked up at the clock. It was half past six. “What time is my pickup?”

  “In fifteen minutes,” Beezle said calmly.

  I stood abruptly and ran for my shoes. “I would have appreciated a little advance warning.”

  “What’s the big deal? You’re only two minutes away by wing. Besides, it’s not my fault you never comb your hair.”

  “I comb my hair…”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “I just don’t stare in the mirror while I’m doing it.”

  I hurriedly pulled on my boots and a blue peacoat that I usually reserved for early autumn. J.B. still had my winter coat, as he’d used it to carry the cameras to the Agency.