“I can’t believe you’re kissing me in this state,” I said.
“You have looked worse,” Gabriel said, smiling.
“I find that difficult to believe,” I said.
There was a crack of thunder behind me and I twisted to look at the castle. Or rather, what remained of the castle. It was nothing more than a jumble of stone and mortar now, the broken spell spewing arcs of light into the night sky.
Beezle landed on my chest and examined my face. “How did you manage to make the whole castle fall down, huh, Maddy?”
“She killed my mother,” J.B. said from behind Gabriel.
I sat up more fully, nudged Gabriel aside so I could look at J.B. He had his hands in his pockets and was staring broodily at the remains of his family court.
“I did,” I said steadily. I wouldn’t offer any excuses.
“I knew that you would,” he said. “She wouldn’t stop trying to kill you.”
“I’m sorry that I’m unreasonable about that,” I said, a tad defensive. “But people keep trying to make it a question of them or me.”
“I’m not blaming you,” he said. There was no sorrow in his voice, and his eyes were dry. “I just knew that it would happen, sooner or later.”
“Well, the upside of Destructo-Girl’s actions is that the room full of spiders is destroyed, so we can cross that off our to-do list,” Beezle said.
“And we got Wade back,” I said.
“For which I am heartily grateful, Madeline Black,” said Wade.
He stood next to Samiel, wrapped in Gabriel’s overcoat. He looked a lot thinner than the last time I’d seen him. Exhaustion had etched his face in new lines, and his salt-and-pepper beard was ragged.
“What of the cubs?” Wade asked. “Did you find them as well?”
“Yes,” I said, and explained what had happened. “But we still don’t know how to…fix them.”
I looked at J.B., who turned away from the castle to face Wade. “We’re trying to find a way to heal them, but it’s difficult. We’ve only just determined that it’s their memories that have been taken from them.”
“Yes,” Wade said grimly. “That, I knew.”
“Why didn’t they take yours as well?” I asked.
“Amarantha and Focalor had some other intention for me. They would not reveal it. But they did force me to watch as they tore the first memories from our cubs.”
“What are they doing with the memories?” I asked.
“They’re selling them,” Wade said. “To vampires.”
“Selling them?” I said blankly. “Why?”
“Human sensation is like a drug to these creatures. They feed off it. When a vampire kills a human he experiences all the moments of that human’s life before death. Many vampires become addicted to the thrill of memory. But it is impractical to kill humans all the time.”
“It attracts too much attention,” I said.
“And depletes your food supply,” added Beezle.
“So Amarantha and Focalor decided to get together and sell memories to vampires? How did they come up with the technology for extracting the memories in the first place?” I asked.
Wade shook his head. “This I do not know. There is a third party in this game. Whoever that is presented the technology to Amarantha.”
“Awesome,” I said. “There’s an unknown factor running around.”
“Madeline,” Gabriel murmured. “I know that it is important to find the source of these problems, but do you not think we should return Wade to his pack? They have been grieving for their alpha.”
I rubbed my face, tired beyond comprehension. “Right. Return Wade to pack.”
“Jude is going to grind his teeth to dust when you bring Wade back,” Beezle predicted. “He didn’t believe you.”
“Believe what?” Wade asked.
“Maddy promised to bring you back,” Beezle said, landing on my shoulder as I got to my feet.
Wade grinned. “That is why I told Jude to go to her if I went missing. Madeline’s loyalty is her finest quality.”
My cheeks reddened as everyone looked at me. “Don’t we have somewhere to be?”
Gabriel touched my cheek. “You should not be embarrassed. Everyone here knows that you would fight to the death for them. It is why we put our own lives in peril when you ask. It is why the Grigori fear you, why Lucifer wants so badly to collect you.”
“Because she’s stubborn?” Beezle said. “I never really considered that a positive quality.”
That’s because when you want a doughnut and she says no, you know you’ll never get it, Samiel signed.
“I’m more stubborn that she is,” Beezle said. “If it’s one thing gargoyles know how to do, it’s outlast.”
“Ooookay,” I said, very uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. I didn’t want any more discussions of my qualities while I could hear them. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
I turned away in the direction of the portal, but not before I saw them all smile at one another, like they knew something I did not.
I crashed into bed when we finally got home. It was midday, but the sky looked like it was threatening snow so my bedroom was pleasantly dark. Gabriel kissed my cheek and then I conked out.
When I woke up I was painfully aware of the fact that I had slept unwashed and in my clothes. I rolled to my feet and wandered over to the window. Snow had fallen while I slept—a great deal of it. The rain barrel in my backyard was covered to about half its height, and the snow was still coming down. It looked like we were having a genuine Chicago blizzard.
I stripped out of my clothes and went for the bathroom, wondering vaguely where everyone was. The bathroom door opened just as I finished shampooing all the gunk out of my hair.
“Gabriel?” I called.
“Yes,” he said, and pulled aside the shower curtain.
He stepped inside, and I looked up at him. His eyes were burning.
“I’ve never taken a shower with anyone before,” I said, smoothing my hands over his shoulders.
“Neither have I,” he replied, and he kissed me. “But I think we can figure out what to do.”
“I think we need to burn those sheets,” I said as we got dressed in the bedroom a little while later. “We’ll never be able to get the spider goop out of them.”
Gabriel gave the sheets a critical look. “You may be correct. The spider ichor seems to be very…persistent.”
“And very smelly,” Beezle said as he flew into the bedroom and landed on the dresser.
I pulled my sweater over my head and glared at him. “Haven’t you ever heard of privacy?”
“That is a concept with which I am unfamiliar,” Beezle said.
“Newlyweds usually enjoy being alone,” I said pointedly.
“Gargoyles usually enjoy being fed in a timely manner,” he replied.
“Go bother Samiel,” I said.
“I’ve been bothering him all morning. It’s your turn,” Beezle said.
“Your cell phone is ringing,” Gabriel said, cutting in.
I kicked around in the pile of filthy clothes on the floor until I found my peacoat. The phone was in the inside pocket, and I had to very carefully unfold the jacket to get at it without getting dirty again.
I glanced at the caller ID. “What’s up, J.B.?”
“You need to get downtown as soon as you can,” he said, and there was suppressed excitement in his voice. “I think Chloe’s figured out a way to cure the victims, but I need your help first.”
“We’ll be there soon,” I promised, and clicked off.
I told the other two what J.B. said.
“We can go as soon as I get fed,” Beezle said.
“Why are you coming?”
“Because I was there when you found the cubs, and I want to see them fixed,” Beezle said.
Sometimes I don’t think I give Beezle enough credit.
A couple of hours later the four of us—me, Samiel, Gab
riel and Beezle—had passed through security and were on our way to the basement room where Chloe worked on the machines. When we arrived we found Wade and Jude were already there with J.B.
“En Taro Adun, Madeline Black!” Wade said.
Jude grunted at me. He had been thrilled to see that Wade was alive, but he had been less pleased that I had been the author of Wade’s escape from Amarantha. Jude still had trouble comprehending that I was not Lucifer.
We all crowded into the small room. Chloe looked less than pleased to have so many people in her space—that was, until she saw Samiel.
“Well, helllllo,” she said, giving him the up-and-down.
Samiel looked slightly panicked.
“Quit messing around, Chloe,” J.B. said. “Show them.”
Chloe lifted one of the machines from the pile on the table. “So, it’s been pretty well established that what’s being stored in these machines are memories. What I couldn’t figure out was how the memories were being extracted and then manipulated. It was clear after a while that the solution was part mechanical and part magical.”
“There is a spell embedded in the machine?” Gabriel asked.
“Exactly,” Chloe said, and winked at him. I got the feeling that she enjoyed flirting and that she wasn’t particularly discriminatory.
“The spell uses the eye scanner on each machine to extract the memories. Once they are removed the memories are embedded in this chip,” she said, pointing to a tiny computer chip. “It seems, from what Wade told us, that the chips are then taken out of the machines and put in some kind of virtual reality headset that is probably also enspelled. It would actually help us to have one of those headsets so I can see how the spell operates, which is why you’re here.”
I looked at J.B. “How are we supposed to track down one of the headsets?”
“We’ve got a line on the location of a vampire nest,” J.B. said.
“Didn’t we do something incredibly stupid yesterday?” Beezle complained.
“I think I may have broken down the components of the spell enough that we can rebuild it to work in reverse if I can get this final piece. But it’s going to take time—a lot of it. First we have to match the correct camera to the correct person. We’ll have to remove the magic embedded in each machine, carefully rebuild the spell, and then…”
“The only way to test if it will work is to try a machine on a person,” J.B. said, and looked at me. “At least you had the unbelievable foresight to collect all the cameras. With those we can actually restore the right memories to the right person.”
I did not like the sound of trying out this sketchy process on a person without some other kind of testing first.
“What if we kill the victims when we’re trying to restore their memories?” I asked.
“Could it really be worse than they are now?” J.B. asked. “They don’t know where they are. They don’t know anything except that they’ve been taken from the machine. Most of them have screamed themselves hoarse. We had to pad the walls so that they don’t kill themselves walking into solid objects.”
“Madeline was able to make the cubs obey her commands,” Gabriel said. “Why not have her attempt the same with the other victims? At the very least we could prevent them from harming themselves further.”
Wade cleared his throat. “I am not certain that will work. When we were taken, I instructed the cubs to follow Madeline Black if she arrived to rescue them. I told them to listen to her and do exactly as she says.”
“So…even though the cubs were completely damaged, they still followed Maddy and listened to her because you said so?” Beezle asked.
“The power of an alpha over his pack is absolute,” Wade said.
I’d never realized before how strong the magic bond was in a wolf pack. There was something so earthy about the wolves that it was easy to forget they were supernatural at all. Even their shift from human to wolf form seemed natural.
“So that’s out,” I said. “I can’t help the victims here because they weren’t instructed by Wade to do what I said.”
“We have to try the machines on them, Maddy,” J.B. said. “The life they have now is worse than death.”
“Tell that to the cubs’ mothers,” I said fiercely. “I don’t think one of them would risk their child’s life, even if it is a half life.”
“We won’t try it on the kids first,” J.B. said.
“So you’ll risk some other mother’s son?” I said. “It’s okay if they’re past puberty? I found them. I’m responsible for them. I won’t let you risk their lives needlessly.”
“What do you want me to do?” J.B. said angrily. “We have no way to test the efficacy of the method. We can either try to return the memories or leave these people as they are. That’s not an acceptable option to me.”
Wade put his hand on my shoulder when I would have retorted further. “Madeline Black, you have an admirable respect for life.”
“I see enough death,” I said dully.
“But J.B. is correct. These people have had their lives and minds torn from them. We must at least try to restore them.”
“Will you risk the cubs?” I said, looking up at him.
His eyes were full of sorrow. “Yes. If it will lift the darkness that has fallen over my pack, if it will restore even one child to her mother. Madeline Black, my daughter is one of the cubs that you found.”
Saying “I’m sorry” didn’t seem to be enough. If Wade was really willing to take the chance with his own child’s life, then I couldn’t stand in the way.
“Okay,” I said to Chloe. “Do what you need to do. I’ll find the missing piece that you need.”
I was the last one to leave as we filed out. I passed Beezle to Gabriel and let the door swing shut so that it was only the two of us in the room. Chloe had already returned to her worktable, a headlamp with a magnifying glass attached to it over her eye.
“Don’t try anything unless you are ninety-five percent sure that it’s going to work,” I said to her, and she looked up. “I can’t ask for a hundred percent. I know that’s not possible. But wait until you’re almost sure.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t mess this up. Besides, everyone here knows about you. I’m not going to want Madeline Black pissed off at me.”
She smiled and winked at me. Maybe she just liked winking. I left the room before she said or did anything else unsettling.
J.B. and Gabriel were waiting for me in the hall.
“Where’s Beezle?” I asked.
“He went with Samiel,” Gabriel said. “He prefers the company of my brother.”
“Because Beezle likes to hear himself talk and Samiel can’t talk back,” I said.
“It’ll be easier to get into the nest with just the three of us, anyway,” J.B. said.
I looked at J.B. “Chloe said something weird. She said that I have some kind of…reputation here.”
J.B. looked amused. “You haven’t been spending very much time in the office. You’ve become something of a legend around here. They talk about you like they do the Retrievers—‘If you do something bad, Madeline Black will come and get you.’”
“Great,” I said. “Awesome. I am now a bogeyman for bad Agents.”
Gabriel laughed. “If they had seen you yesterday, they certainly would have believed you a bogeyman.”
“You’ve been spending too much time around Beezle,” I said crossly. “It’s giving you a smart mouth.”
“I do not want to be the only unarmed member of the family,” Gabriel replied.
“You still have a long way to go,” I said as we walked toward the elevator. “Beezle and I have years of practice on you.”
“And I have years to catch up,” Gabriel said, and took my hand.
J.B., Gabriel and I left the Agency and headed west.
“How did you find out about this nest?” I asked J.B.
His eyes slid away from me. “I asked around.”
“Asked who?” I said
suspiciously. Then it dawned on me. “You asked one of the seers to tell you about the death of a human at the hands of vampires, didn’t you? J.B., you actually broke the rules?”
Agents are allowed to know the time and place of a death, but that’s about it. We’re not allowed to know what is going to happen or why or how. I’m pretty sure it’s a measure that’s been put in place to prevent us from trying to stop deaths. Like I’ve said before, it can be difficult to stand back sometimes, to let death happen even when you know that it should.
“I had to break the rules,” J.B. said. “We’ve got to find some way to cure these people. So I hid under a veil and followed a vampire after it killed a person.”
I shook my head. “You’re getting wild in your old age, J.B. One of these days you might forget to fill out a form.”
“That will never happen,” he assured me.
“What do we do if this nest doesn’t have any vampires that are using memories?” I asked.
“It had better,” J.B. said. “I’m not asking another seer for information. I could lose my position if anyone found out.”
“How do you know this particular seer will not betray you?” Gabriel asked.
J.B. was silent, and when I looked at him I saw a faint pink tinge on his cheeks. “She, um, likes me.”
I could think of a million things to say in response to that, but I didn’t. Gabriel turned his head away so J.B. wouldn’t see him smile.
We continued west and south until we hit the Ukrainian Village area. J.B. indicated that we should land, and we touched down on the sidewalk in front of a three-flat apartment building.
The snow was piled high in drifts and the sidewalk had been imperfectly shoveled, leaving lots of icy patches. And of course I promptly slipped on one and landed on my butt in a pile of snow. Since I was still wearing the peacoat, my jeans got soaked almost immediately. Luckily no one could see me except J.B. and Gabriel. As long as my wings were out I was still invisible. J.B. was snorting with laughter. Gabriel knew better.
I stood up, dusted snow off my bottom and gave J.B. an evil glare. “I thought that all the Agents were afraid of my wrath.”
“The Agents are. I’m not,” J.B. said. “I’ve seen you come to work in your slippers.”
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