Black Wings

by Christina Henry

  Antares snarled in my ear and then slammed my face against the doorframe—twice. The second time I heard something crack and I felt hot fluid running out of my nose.

  The distraction was enough. While Antares was breaking my nose, Gabriel blasted him in the chest with nightfire. Antares screamed and dropped me to the ground, making sure to kick me in the process. Since he was a demon and a hell of a lot stronger than a human, his kick didn’t just crack my ribs. It cracked my ribs and launched me across the room into the wall. I smashed into a framed Ansel Adams photo and fell heavily to the ground, the whole time thinking, Wow, Antares’s control issues are worse than mine. I wonder if that’s a family trait?

  Then I saw stars and birdies for a few minutes. The smell of sulfur, sage and apple pie filled the air. I could hear the sounds of Gabriel and Antares grunting and snarling at each other as they dueled. The occasional bolt of magic careened around the room.

  The little match flame inside me flickered. I needed to get up and help Gabriel. He wasn’t allowed to kill Antares—the rules about not harming another demon’s thrall still applied no matter what Antares’s crimes—but Antares would have no compunction about harming Gabriel. Antares was already an outcast of Azazel’s court and facing punishment for killing humans. Offing Gabriel would be nothing to the demon.

  I wanted to hurry up, to get to my feet, but all the broken things inside me hurt like hell. I pushed myself to a sitting position and hoped that Antares would be too distracted by Gabriel to launch any spells at me.

  While I was pulling myself together the battle had moved into the hall. I was amazed that Greenwitch’s upstairs neighbors weren’t banging on the front door. It sounded like Antares and Gabriel were smashing every piece of glass and wood in the place.

  I staggered to my feet, sucking in air spasmodically. Beezle and Gabriel had counseled emotional control for my magical abilities. Now I needed to control the pain so that I could focus on my power.

  I let my breathing slow and tried not to think about the pain radiating just above my belly. The little match flame surged up suddenly, and the power pushed me upright like a string pulling a marionette. It helped me forget about the pain.

  “Now,” I said, fingertips crackling with energy. “You’re mine, little brother.”

  I strode into the hallway just as Gabriel blasted Antares into the kitchen, which was across the hall from the workroom. The demon slammed into the refrigerator, leaving an indentation that looked like a mold of his body, like in the cartoons where the coyote gets hit by a train and smashed into a canyon wall.

  Gabriel never took his eyes from the demon as he blasted Antares again with blue flames. Antares howled in fury and stumbled away, swiping his hand across the counter and knocking over several vases of wildflowers. He fell to his knees, his back to us.

  “Can we capture him and bring him to Azazel?” I said, coming to Gabriel’s side.

  “Yes. I can restrain him.” He furrowed his brow and blasted Antares again. The demon collapsed to his stomach, panting, seemingly spent.

  Gabriel mumbled to himself and conjured what looked like a pair of blue-lightning handcuffs out of the air. The cuffs crackled with electricity. He strode forward and reached for Antares’s arm, which was tucked underneath the demon’s chest.

  Again, I felt something was not right. Again, I was a whisper too late. “Gabriel, wait ...”

  Antares came to his feet with a roar and a maniacal grin filled with razor teeth. He plunged his clawed hand into Gabriel’s stomach and then pulled it out again, covered in gore and gripping what looked like a little nugget of the sun. The rock shone like daylight in Antares’s blood-covered fist.

  Blood bubbled out of the half angel’s mouth as he folded up like a paper fan and collapsed to the floor. I screamed in horror and grief, and all the magic came blasting out of me in a wave, all focused on the creature that had harmed Gabriel.

  Antares couldn’t move quickly enough. Electricity danced over the demon’s skin, searing away the red flesh. It smelled like really bad barbecue. He dropped the shining rock and it skidded across the floor, rolling under the refrigerator. Antares clawed at his skin, howling and tearing off shreds of muscle down to the bone, trying to get my magic off and out of him.

  I ignored the furious demon and ran to the refrigerator, dropping to my stomach and peering underneath. The rock was just underneath the lip at the bottom of the refrigerator.

  I closed my fingers around it and nearly dropped it. It was jagged and small enough to fit inside my closed fist but it was as hot as a coal from a roaring fire. Smoke swirled from my closed fist, and the smell of my own cooking flesh was added to Antares’s.

  I crawled to Gabriel and knelt beside him, lifting his head to my lap. His face was chalk white but that wasn’t what scared me. When I laid my hand on his face, he was colder than stone.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no,” I moaned. I covered the hole in his stomach with my hands. I could feel the blood pumping out between my fingers. “Oh, God. Just hold on, Gabriel. Hold on.”

  “The outcast is dead,” Antares hissed.

  I looked up at the demon with furious eyes and gave him another blast of magic for good measure. He screamed and fell to the floor, writhing.

  “Gabriel,” I said, my tears falling on his face. “Gabriel, can you hear me? What can I do?”

  He opened his eyes. There were no stars, no meteors, just the empty blackness of deep space. The heart of the universe.

  “You ... have ... to ... get ... me ... to ... Lord ... Azazel,” he said, and then closed his eyes again.

  “Oh, no, no. You stay awake, Gabriel. Do you hear me? You stay awake!” I screamed.

  A snide, cold voice came from the doorway. “What has happened here, Madeline?”

  I looked up. Nathaniel stood in the doorway, goldenhaired and dressed in a Burberry coat and scarf. Disgust was etched on his features. I realized that Antares was gone—again. He must have done his disappearing act into a portal while I was concentrating on Gabriel. Apparently there was no amount of pain that could kill Antares’s instinct for self-preservation.

  “Nathaniel, you have to take Gabriel to my father,” I said, pulling my hands away from the wound. I realized I was still holding the daylight rock and I opened my palm. There was a jagged circle branded on the skin. “Antares took this out of him. I don’t know what it is.”

  The angel looked revolted. “It is a piece of his heart-stone. If the thrall dies, it is none of my concern. Lord Azazel sent me here to protect you, and I find you not at home, but out doing the precise thing he has ordered you not to do.”

  I could not believe my father wanted me to marry this asshole. I strode across the room and slapped him across the face. He looked shocked, holding his hand to the place where I’d hit him.

  “Gabriel’s life is slipping away. You are the only one here who can open a portal. Take him to my father now,” I shouted.

  “If you were not Lord Azazel’s daughter, I would kill you for that insult. I am not going to touch a half nephilim, and no fiancée of mine should be touching him either,” Nathaniel said haughtily.

  My magic swirled up, hot and angry, and I knew that my eyes must have changed, because Nathaniel took a half step away from me. “You ... will ... bring ... him ... to ... my . . . father. If he dies, or if he even suffers a moment longer than necessary because of you, then believe this—I will ensure that you bleed every single day for the rest of your very, very long existence.”

  He looked at me for a moment, and I saw the fear flicker across his face. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Believe it, scumbag,” I said, and as I spoke my power grew and grew, pushing until I felt that my skin was all that was holding it inside me.

  Nathaniel seemed to consider; then he held out his hand for the stone. I placed it in his palm without a word and he grasped my hand with his free one.

  “Know this, Madeline Black. I only do this as a favor to you, because you
are my betrothed. But in the future, you will cleave unto me as your husband, and it is my wishes that will be obeyed.” His eyes were frosted with ice.

  “We’ll see about that,” I said, and yanked my hand away.

  He strode to Gabriel and lifted the half angel under his shoulders and knees. Gabriel did not stir. I could barely see the rise and fall of his chest.

  Nathaniel opened a portal in the kitchen. Mist swirled inside.

  “Take him directly to my father,” I said.

  “As you wish, Madeline. For now,” he said, and stepped inside.

  The portal closed behind them, and I was alone in Greenwitch’s kitchen, my hands soaked in Gabriel’s blood.

  20

  FOR THE SECOND TIME IN TWO DAYS I BROKE DOWN. I fell to my knees and covered my eyes with my bloody hands and sobbed until there were no more tears. Then I crawled out of the kitchen. The floor was coated in Gabriel’s blood as well as bits of Antares’s skin and muscle, and it smelled like a slaughterhouse. My knees left dragging tracks in the mess.

  I hauled myself to my feet, using the doorway as a support. I’d forgotten about my nose and ribs in all the excitement. The pain now returned to pummel me into submission. My head felt like it had been cracked open with a nut hammer and the throbbing in my ribs made every breath a punishment.

  I leaned in the doorway and took a quick assessment of my situation. I was severely injured. My most trusted ally was mortally wounded. My enemy had managed to escape yet again, which meant he would be back at the most inconvenient time possible to try to kill me. Not that there was ever a convenient time for my murder, really.

  I still had to track Ramuell or Evangeline’s captor or both, and I had basically zero control over my magic. It was miraculous that I had managed to blast Antares with something magically useful, like electricity. I could have just as easily launched feathers in his face.

  Without Gabriel, without control over my powers and without a clue how to magically track anyone, I felt pretty hopeless about my cause.

  “I don’t know what to do. Help me. Help me. I’m all alone,” I whispered. I didn’t even know who I was asking for help. I just knew that I couldn’t do this by myself.

  You are not alone.

  I stood upright and stared around the room wildly. I knew that voice.

  “Where are you?” I said. “Show yourself.”

  Evangeline appeared before me, small and thin with a long tumble of dark hair. She wore a simple white robe that made her look very sweet and very young. She shimmered as she hung in the air, an idea without corporeal presence.

  I looked like her. Not in an obvious way, but it was clear there was a family resemblance in the eyes and the mouth and the shape of the face.

  “Are you a ghost?” I said. She didn’t really look like a ghost. More like a TV signal that kept flickering on and off.

  No, she said. I am a memory that has been locked in the blood of my descendants for many generations.

  Her mouth didn’t move but her voice filled the room. It was fairly creepy.

  “So why have you been unlocked now?” I asked.

  To help you, my granddaughter. To find the nephilim that kills the children of my children.

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Not to find the angel who held you captive? The one that got away?”

  Something flickered across her face but I couldn’t read the emotion.

  The nephilim’s master and my captor are one and the same.

  I pumped my fist in the air. “I knew it! I told Beezle and Gabriel.”

  We must leave. The nephilim cannot show his face in daylight . . .

  “Ha! Knew that, too. Why is that, anyway?”

  Evangeline looked impatient. Because, as you suspected, the light of the Morningstar has been twisted inside Ramuell. Sunlight will destroy him utterly. This was hidden by Lucifer. All the nephilim were bound deep underground in the Valley of Sorrows to protect his son’s secret.

  But we must hurry now. It will not be long before the nephilim’s master realizes that your bodyguard has been mortally injured. She will send others after you.

  “How come you waited until now to appear to me and give me all this useful information?” I said suspiciously. “What’s your angle?”

  Only to help you, my granddaughter, she repeated. I was unable to assist you directly before because you did not call for aid.

  She looked innocent and full of grace, but I wasn’t so certain that her motives were pure. I strongly suspected that some of my freakier powers had manifested as a result of her influence. And it seemed that she had waited until pretty late in the day to get around to helping me.

  There is no time, she insisted, holding out her ghostly hand to me. We must go now.

  I’d wanted help, and here it was. If I took Evangeline’s hand, I could find Ramuell and his master. I didn’t know if I would be able to capture or injure them on my own, but since she was so hot to get me to them I assumed there would be some assistance on that front.

  I just wasn’t so sure that my darling great-grandmother wouldn’t sacrifice me to reach her own ends. Everyone I had encountered over the last few days had an agenda of their own, and that agenda never seemed to include my well-being at the top of the list.

  I could choose to trust Evangeline. Or I could choose to trust that I’d have the wit to keep myself alive. I wasn’t so sure about the second choice. It seemed that thus far I’d skated by on a combination of luck and Gabriel’s healing ability. But this might be my only chance. If I didn’t go after Ramuell now, Antares might come back and kill me. Or a horde of demons might come flying out of the oven. Really, with the week I’d had, anything was possible.

  I took Evangeline’s hand. It wasn’t like grasping the hand of a corporeal being. There was no feeling of firmness, of solid flesh beneath my fingers. But there was a definite feeling of pressure, almost like the air had been molded. I was certain once I touched her that I would not be able to loose myself unless she allowed it.

  Stay close, my granddaughter, she said, and gripped me tightly. I felt a warmth in my nose and ribs as my injuries healed.

  She pointed the index finger of her free hand and made a circle in the air in front of us. A line of flame appeared where her finger brushed the air.

  The center of the circle opened, and the opening spread outward until it reached the flames that hung in the air. It looked like a portal, but it was not filled with swirling mist. Instead, there was a long road with a crack running down the center. In the distance were jagged peaks of gray mountains under flashes of silver lightning. I could see the silhouette of a giant leafless tree, white as bone, scraping thin claws to the dark sky.

  “I’ve been here before,” I murmured. “This is the place where you found Lucifer, when you first walked to him from your village.”

  It is the Forbidden Lands, Evangeline said. Lucifer kept his palace here, once.

  Her face was full of sorrow. I realized that she had been his bride for only a few short months before she was forced to give him up. I felt pity for her, even though there was something monstrous about her, for she had willingly killed anyone who stood in her path to him. I grieved a little for this child who had destroyed everything and everyone in her village for the love of the Morningstar, only to lose him before their life really began.

  “What happened to you, after you went to Michael?” I asked.

  She hesitated, then said, Let us go. I will tell you as we walk.

  Evangeline floated through the circle of flame. I stepped through after her. The circle closed behind us with a soft whoosh and she released my hand, beckoning me forward.

  My boots scraped against the asphalt road as I walked. On either side of the road there was nothing except very fine, gray sand and the occasional boulder. The air was cold, much colder than an October morning in Chicago. I’d dressed in my usual uniform of jeans, a sweater and boots with a wool peacoat over it, and I was significantly underdressed for the Fo
rbidden Lands.

  I could see my breath puff out before me in white clouds. An icy wind kicked up, blowing sand in my eyes, and I narrowed them to slits. I stuffed my hands in my pockets so that my fingers wouldn’t freeze and fall off. I was a little worried about my ears, though, and pulled up the collar of my coat and hunched my shoulders. I succeeded only in keeping my earlobes covered and decided not to bother.

  My teeth chattering, I called to Evangeline. “Where is this place? We can’t be anywhere on the Earth I know.”

  She floated a few feet ahead of me, completely unaffected by the cold. Her voice drifted back, carried on the wind. It is a world that is brushed up next to your world, one of many. Is this not what you give to the souls that you bring to the Door? Their choice of all the worlds?

  I grinned fiercely behind the collar of my coat. Score one for the Agent. “I don’t think you were supposed to tell me that.”

  Evangeline looked back at me and shrugged delicately. She waited until I caught up to her and then floated along beside me. I have never understood why the celestial ones have insisted on keeping man ignorant.

  I remembered something from the first vision she had sent me. “And this place in particular? There was a nuclear war here?”

  Nuclear? She frowned. Yes. I suppose that is the word that you would use. There were once great cities here, and then there were flames and great clouds of ash, and when it was over this was all that remained.

  I glanced around me, struck by another realization. “I’m not going to get radiation poisoning, am I?”

  I suppose the Forbidden Lands could make you sick if you were human. But you are not entirely human, my granddaughter. The blood of two Grigori runs in your veins. That should be enough to protect you.

  She looked serene and unruffled, but I wasn’t convinced. I’d gotten plenty of colds and flu in my time, and the blood of the Grigori hadn’t helped me any then.

  “I guess there’s nothing to be done about it now,” I sighed. “You’re not going to take me home until we’ve found Ramuell, are you?”