Black Howl bw-3

by Christina Henry

  Throwing nightfire and flying all over the place like a demented pinball wasn’t doing any good. I hung as still as I could, moving my wings only just enough to keep me aloft. The spider paused, suspended on its string, twisting in the air and looking for me. I made barely an eddy in the thick cloud of miasma that blanketed the air.

  We were in a far corner of the warehouse, well above the prisoners bound to their chairs below. Glancing down I realized we were above an open space. The closest prisoner was several feet away.

  Nightfire didn’t work, and the sword was missing. That left something a little know-it-all gargoyle had once told me—Most things don’t like fire.

  I reached down into the place where my magic flickered and pulled on that source of power until it ran in my blood. It passed through my heartstone and was lit by the flame of the sun.

  The spider screeched, and I knew it could see me lit from within. It swung toward me, intent on its prey, its blood-stinking jaws wide for the kill.

  The flames raced inside my veins, down to the tips of the three fingers of my left hand, and exploded out into a giant fireball that entered the spider’s mouth.

  The effect was instantaneous. The spider burst into flame and crashed to the ground, screaming the whole way. It thrashed and kicked feebly, smoke pouring from its body. The smell was horrific.

  I took a minute to appreciate the fact that I was no longer in immediate danger of being eaten alive by a giant spider. Then I realized the flaming spider had set a nearby table on fire and that the fire was spreading, thereby putting all the captives in danger.

  “Because that’s what fires do, Maddy,” I said to myself. “They spread.”

  I flew to the ground and looked around for a fire extinguisher. I didn’t find any, nor did any internal sprinkler system kick in. This building was definitely not up to code.

  It was just possible that I was getting a little hysterical. The room was already growing hotter and the smoke was scorching my throat.

  The priority was to get the prisoners out, but I knew from my experience with the wolf cubs that this would not be an easy task. As I crossed the room to the people nearest the source of flame, I heard banging. It seemed like someone was trying to break down the door into the warehouse. I turned toward the pounding, nightfire at the ready.

  The door flew open with a crash and J.B. came through, along with dozens of special-forces Agents. The cavalry had arrived.

  J.B. took in me, the dead spiders, the prisoners and the flame at a glance.

  “Get those people out of here!” he shouted.

  The Agents poured forward, cutting the prisoners’ bonds and pulling the people from their chairs. The air filled with the sounds of screams.

  “Get the cameras, too!” I shouted, running forward to help. I saw something winking in the firelight and stopped to pick up the sword. I shoved it back in its scabbard and began gathering cameras with my working arm.

  J.B. reached my side. “Why are you taking these? Get out of here.”

  “The machines are important. I’m not sure why. But we can’t leave them here.”

  “No, I know they’re important. And I’ll make sure we collect them all,” he shouted over the din of screaming people and crackling flame. “I’m saying you look like garbage and we’ll take it from here.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. I was feeling a little light-headed.

  J.B. signaled to another Agent, who came and took the cameras I’d collected. Then he gave me a little push. “Go on, get outside.”

  “There are offices, I think. We might be able to find out who’s doing this. On the other side of the wall.”

  “We’ll try to get what we can before the building burns down,” J.B. said grimly.

  I turned toward the door. The Agents were very efficiently removing the prisoners and cameras. The room had already been mostly emptied.

  My boots felt heavy, my arm hurt, and my throat, already sore from Metatrion’s ministrations, felt scratchy and irritated from the smoke. My eyes watered and my stomach had never completely settled down despite all the life-in- peril excitement.

  Gabriel came through the door, looking worried. I smiled tiredly at him and walked a little faster.

  He jogged toward me. I opened my arms to wrap them around his neck.

  “Where’s Beezle?” I asked.

  I was looking into his eyes, and it was only because I was so tired that I didn’t realize that his eyes were wrong. By then, the knife had already slid between my ribs.

  “Cockroach,” I spat, blood bubbling to my lips.

  Antares smiled, and the mask of Gabriel fell away, revealing my half brother in all his red-skinned, black-horned demon glory. I hadn’t seen him since I’d imprisoned him outside the Maze. Somehow the little insect had managed to escape the cage and all of Azazel’s efforts at finding him.

  “Maddy!” J.B. cried, and the anguish in his voice broke my heart.

  Antares had his hand on my bad shoulder, holding me close as he thrust again with the knife. Hot blood poured from the wounds and I saw stars before my eyes.

  Then I heard Gabriel’s voice.

  “ANTARES!” he shouted, and there was a fury there that I had never heard before.

  Antares pulled the knife out and let go of my shoulder. I fell to my knees as he turned to face Gabriel.

  Gabriel stood in the doorway, and his face was beautiful and terrible to behold. His black eyes glowed with starlight, his black wings spread wide. The power that pulsed from him seemed to fill up the room, made it hard to breathe. I understood suddenly why the Grigori feared the children of the nephilim. Everyone in the room was frozen and quiet, including the previously screaming prisoners.

  “You’re too late, thrall,” Antares taunted. “Her mortal life is already leaving her.”

  “Gabriel’s not really the type to banter,” I slurred.

  I knew I was dying. I’d died once before, although that time was a lot quicker. Ramuell had torn my heart out. That was much better than bleeding slowly on a warehouse floor, I can tell you. There’s something to be said for efficiency.

  I was right—Gabriel didn’t respond to Antares. He blasted the demon with a ball of white-hot fire—a power I had never seen wielded by any creature since Ramuell had destroyed the intersection of Clark and Belmont two months before.

  Antares produced some kind of talisman that was on a leather bracelet wrapped around his wrist. My half brother has no power of his own, but he is able to wield a wide collection of magical objects left to him by his dead mother.

  Gabriel stalked forward and blasted Antares again. This time Antares wasn’t fast enough and the white fire hit him square in the chest. I smelled sulfur, and sizzling flesh, and Antares howled with pain. He bounded toward Gabriel, claws extended to tear Gabriel’s throat out.

  The world suddenly tilted sideways and I toppled forward onto my face. I don’t know how long I lay like that, but the next thing I knew J.B. was smacking me in the face.

  “Wake up, Maddy! You cannot go to sleep!”

  “Jeez, no need to be so rough,” I said slowly. “I just got stabbed, you know.”

  He laughed involuntarily and lifted me in his arms like a baby. I raised my head to see what was going on.

  The back of the warehouse was completely engulfed in flames. All the Agents and prisoners seemed to have exited the building. Gabriel and Antares faced off in the center of the room like a couple of prizefighters.

  Antares sported quite a few burns and bruises. Gabriel looked unharmed but determined.

  “I think he’s toying with Antares,” J.B. said.

  “Gabriel’s too serious for that,” I said. It was hard to talk. My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth. “Besides, don’t underestimate Antares. He’s got more tricks than you can imagine.”

  Gabriel blasted Antares again, and the demon seemed to have decided enough was enough. He turned on the spot, narrowly avoiding Gabriel’s blast, and disappeared into th
in air.

  “He does that a lot,” I said to J.B.

  Gabriel gave such an intense cry of rage that the ground trembled.

  “COWARD! WRETCH! WHEREVER YOU FLEE, I WILL FIND YOU. YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.”

  “The cry of a nephilim that has been denied its prey,” Lucifer’s voice said behind us.

  J.B. spun around so fast that I felt my stomach heave. Lucifer stood just behind us, his wings tucked neatly under a black overcoat. He had a speculative look that I did not like, particularly since his speculations seemed to be focused on Gabriel.

  The back wall of the warehouse gave an ominous crack.

  “The building will come down around our ears at any moment,” Lucifer said. “You may give me my granddaughter now, Jacob.”

  J.B. tightened his hold on me.

  “How do I know you’re not Antares in disguise?”

  “It’s him,” I said sourly. The magic inside me always seemed to recognize Lucifer.

  J.B. still seemed reluctant to give me up.

  “Your chivalry is admirable,” Lucifer said impatiently. “But you cannot heal her, and I can.”

  J.B. passed me to Lucifer. I was immediately enveloped in the comforting smell of cinnamon. My limbs filled with warmth, and I knew Lucifer was healing me. I felt cosseted and cared for, and that irritated me. It annoyed me that Lucifer felt more like a father to me than Azazel. I scowled up at him.

  “Are you familiar with the term ‘bad penny’?” I asked as Lucifer carried me outside, J.B. and Gabriel following behind. Gabriel’s anger was coming off him in pulsing waves.

  Samiel and Beezle waited for us, looking worried. There was no sign of the Agents or the prisoners, so they must have returned to the Agency. We all gathered in a huddle.

  “You can put me down now,” I said to Lucifer, and he obliged with a little flourish.

  Beezle flew up and hovered in front of me, inspecting me critically. “You have goo in your hair.”

  “It’s spider blood,” I said.

  “Is there some reason why you feel compelled to burn down everything around you?” he asked.

  “You’re the one who told me most things don’t like fire,” I retorted. “Would you rather the spider had eaten me?”

  “Speaking of eating…” Beezle said.

  “Don’t even try to tell me you’re hungry,” I said.

  “I was just noticing as we were flying over that there was a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby.”

  Lucifer snapped his fingers next to me. A second later he presented a box of Munchkins to my greedy gargoyle.

  Beezle rushed forward and happily accepted the box of doughnut holes from the Prince of Darkness. “Awesome! You need to get him to teach you how to do that.”

  “Is there some reason you’re here besides scoring points with my gargoyle?” I asked.

  Lucifer lost the merry look in his eye that had been there when he’d given Beezle the doughnuts. “Gabriel has used the power of the nephilim.”

  Gabriel suddenly went still.

  “What?” I said. “What now? What ridiculous bit of kingdom law have we broken? If you are here to tell me that Gabriel is going to get taken away, you can just forget it.”

  “The conditions on which Gabriel is allowed to keep his life preclude his using the power of the nephilim,” Lucifer said.

  “Ramuell was YOUR SON!” I said angrily. I’d had enough of the fallen to last me a lifetime. “Gabriel is your grandson. He’s closer in blood to you than I am. I’m separated from you by thousands of generations. He’s not. Do not even try to tell me that you’re going to let the Grigori haul him away and kill him.”

  “No,” Lucifer said, looking troubled. “I am supposed to kill him myself.”

  My magic roared up inside me, hot and angry. The parking lot was suddenly lit by the sun. I was vaguely aware of the massive insult I was doing Lucifer by showing him the full extent of my power, but I was exhausted and sick of angelic politics. Not even Lucifer could take Gabriel from me.

  “I will not let you,” I said, and my voice did not sound like my own. The ground trembled, and everyone except Lucifer and Samiel covered their ears.

  “Do not make the mistake of crossing me, granddaughter. In my kingdom, my word is law.”

  His voice seemed to come from everywhere. Lucifer grew larger, his wings outspread, his eyes winking pools of starlight, until he looked much like he had in my vision of Evangeline, so long ago.

  “You cannot frighten me,” I said, and to my surprise it seemed that my power grew to match his own. “You cannot intimidate me. I am not simply a child of your line. I am an Agent of Death, and Death is my dominion.”

  “Even Death cannot defy the laws of the kingdom.”

  My body was filling up with power, power that I hadn’t even known was inside me. There was too much of it. My skin felt stretched to bursting, and I knew with a sudden surety that if Lucifer tried to fight me in that moment, he would lose.

  “I will defy whoever and whatever to keep Gabriel safe. You cannot have him. He belongs to me.”

  “Belongs?” Lucifer asked, his voice full of innuendo.

  “Not as a thrall, but as my equal. I claim him as such, and tell you that he will no longer be a slave of the fallen.”

  “Very well,” Lucifer said suddenly, and shrank back to his normal self.

  I was so taken aback that my power receded suddenly like a deflating balloon. I stared at the Morningstar. “Very well?”

  “Very well,” he said, and the merriment was back in his eyes. “Gabriel, come forth.”

  Gabriel walked warily to stand in front of Lucifer and beside me.

  “Hold out your hands,” he instructed.

  I held out my right hand, Gabriel his left. We both looked at each other in confusion. The snake on my palm wriggled in anticipation.

  “As Madeline has claimed you as her equal, so you shall be,” Lucifer said to Gabriel.

  He did a little finger wiggle and our hands were suddenly clasped together, palm to palm, bound by golden cord.

  “By the laws of my kingdom and by the power of my will, so you, Madeline Black ap Azazel and Gabriel ap Ramuell, are joined now and forever in this life. Henceforth Gabriel will no longer be a thrall, but a husband. As I have proclaimed it, so it shall be.”

  He clapped his hands together and looked around in delight at the lot of us and the varying expressions of shock on our faces.

  “Married?” I said, looking down at the golden cord.

  “Married,” Lucifer said.

  Gabriel fell to his knees, and because we were bound together, so did I.

  “My lord,” he said, and his voice was full of emotion.

  I looked up at Lucifer, who had a surprising expression of tenderness on his face. It reminded me of something that the faerie queen, Amarantha, had said once—Everyone knows Lucifer is fanatical about his bloodline.

  “Rise,” Lucifer said, “and go forth a free man.”

  Gabriel bowed his head, and I saw one single tear fall to the pavement. Then he turned to me, and held out his other hand. I placed my free hand in his and we rose, facing each other, the reality and the wonder of it finally dawning on us.

  “Kissing is traditional,” Lucifer said.

  For the first time I felt hesitant. Gabriel and I had done a lot of kissing in secret, but never with everyone I cared about in attendance.

  Gabriel, however, felt no hesitance at all. He bent his head to mine, and I had never felt such sweetness from him before, never felt so much love. After a few moments, however, Lucifer cleared his throat.

  “Perhaps you want to, as they say in the vernacular, get a room,” Lucifer said.

  I smiled at Gabriel, and then looked questioningly at the first of the fallen.

  “Why? I thought that you, too, were bound by the laws of your own kingdom.”

  “Nah.” Lucifer grinned. “I can pretty much do whatever I want.”

  He winked, and then di
sappeared.

  “I thought so,” I muttered.

  The golden cord binding our hands together dissolved. In its place were two beautifully carved golden bands, one on Gabriel’s ring finger and one on the ring finger of my right hand (as I was lacking a ring finger on the left). I inspected the ring more closely and saw it was carved with the serpent, the symbol of the house of Lucifer.

  “Well, that was a beautiful wedding,” Beezle said. “The bride has spider goo in her hair and the groom smells like sulfur. The parking-lot-in-front-of-the-burning-warehouse location leaves something to be desired, and there was a distinct lack of refreshments, but otherwise, just lovely.”

  I looked down and realized my coat was slashed and covered in my own blood. I smelled like burned spider. There was the sound of sirens approaching.

  “We should get out of here,” I said. “The firefighters are coming.”

  We all took flight, Beezle coming to rest at his usual place on my shoulder. Gabriel held on to my hand like he was afraid I was going to disappear.

  J.B. flew east a short distance with us, then turned off to head downtown. I shook free from Gabriel for a moment and followed him.

  “J.B.,” I said, and when he turned to look at me I didn’t know what to say.

  “Congratulations,” he said, and I could tell he didn’t really mean it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I tried to put a lot of meaning into those two words. I was sorry he was hurting, and that his hurt was caused by my happiness. I was sorry I couldn’t feel about him the way he felt about me. I was sorry.

  He nodded. “Come to the Agency in the morning. I want to show you something we found with those cameras.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there,” I said, and watched him fly away. He seemed very alone.

  I turned back to Samiel, Beezle and Gabriel, all waiting for me. Gabriel held out his hand, and I took it.

  “I hope the two of you aren’t going to be mushy all the time now,” Beezle said, resuming his perch on my shoulder. “You were kind of unbearable before, when you couldn’t actually touch each other.”