Black Lament

by Christina Henry

  Beezle waved a hand at me. “This is starting to sound disturbingly like a nerd argument, and I am not a nerd. You make the popcorn; I’ll get the DVD.”

  I laughed as he flew out of the room. For just a moment, everything felt normal. And I wanted to keep it that way. At least for a little while.

  I woke the next morning on the couch. Bright sunshine streamed through the picture window. The scent of bacon filled the air. I rubbed my eyes, rolled over and saw Chloe sitting on my coffee table, staring at me.

  She wore a leather vest that revealed the sleeve of tattoos on each arm and a pair of faded jeans. Sparkly purple polish on her fingers and toes matched the shocking violet of her hair.

  “What did you do to your head?” she asked.

  “Who let you in here?” I asked. Did nobody respect my privacy anymore? The house was starting to feel like a dorm.

  “I came up with Samiel,” she said. “I can fix that, you know.”

  I rubbed my hand over my hair. The thought of Chloe near my head with scissors was quite terrifying.

  “Really, I can’t stand to look at you like that,” she said. “It’ll put me off my breakfast. Come on.”

  She grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. I thought I was brusque.

  “Are you staying for whatever Samiel’s cooking, then?” I asked.

  She pulled me into the bathroom and lowered the toilet seat lid. “Sit.”

  I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. Besides, it didn’t seem that arguing would do any good. Chloe was like a force of nature. I could see why Samiel was so disconcerted by her.

  She took the scissors from the cabinet and began to snip here and there. Every once in a while she would tell me to move my head this way or that. I closed my eyes and hoped I wouldn’t end up looking like G.I. Jane.

  “There,” she said with a satisfied tone in her voice. “Look.”

  I stood, a little afraid, and looked in the mirror. And was pleasantly surprised.

  She’d shaped the hacked-off mess into a neat pixie cut that framed my face.

  “It suits you,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  She nodded and walked out. I brushed my teeth, washed my face and took a moment to admire the new me in the mirror before something bad happened to me again. Of course, the new me came with a set of slash marks across my face courtesy of the Hob. The cuts plus the hair made me look a lot like an anime character.

  Chloe and Beezle sat at the table in the kitchen. Both of them were shoveling pancakes and bacon in their mouths as fast as Samiel could make them.

  “Are you preparing for an appearance on Man v. Food?” I asked.

  Chloe and Beezle both grunted at me and kept eating.

  “Where’s Nathaniel?” I asked Samiel.

  He said he wasn’t certain he would be welcome so he would eat downstairs, Samiel signed, shrugging.

  “Well, if he thinks I’m going downstairs to soothe him out of his sulk, he’s got another think coming,” I said.

  Samiel plated some pancakes and handed them to me. You’d better take this before it hits the table; otherwise one of them will devour it.

  I sat down with my pile of pancakes and started eating. After a while, Beezle came up for air.

  “I went online last night after you fell asleep.”

  “And?”

  “And it seems that all is not quiet on the faerie front. Certain factions in Titania and Oberon’s court believe they should not have sent the Hob after you.”

  “Really? I’d have thought all the faeries were on the vengeance-for-Amarantha team.”

  “There are some who believe that Amarantha brought her troubles on herself by involving the court in the affairs of angels. And now that the Hob is dead, those folks are saying that to pressure you further is an unnecessary risk.”

  “It seems your reputation for complete and total destruction precedes you,” Chloe said.

  “And they think it would be stupid to pick a fight with a child of Lucifer,” Beezle added.

  “Why? Lucifer’s never bothered assisting me before.”

  “But just because he hasn’t yet doesn’t mean that he won’t in the future. And nobody wants Lucifer angry with them. They know what he did to Amarantha.”

  “Yet Titania and Oberon don’t share their trepidation,” I said thoughtfully. “Why?”

  “They must think whatever power they’ve got can stand up to Lucifer,” Beezle said.

  “Can it?”

  “They are probably more or less as powerful as they seem, but I think it’s been millennia since Lucifer really bothered to exert himself.”

  “So if he wanted to, he could squash them like bugs.”

  “I think so. But it would be more like squashing a nuclear power plant.”

  “If you kill something that old and that magical, there will be aftershocks,” I guessed.

  “Right.”

  “So what these factions are really worried about is being in the way when the explosion happens.”

  “You can’t credit most faeries with concern for the greater good,” Beezle said.

  “J.B. is pretty noble-minded,” I said.

  “He’s only half-faerie, and he spent most of his childhood with his father. He’s more human than you are.”

  “Thanks,” I said, chewing slowly and thinking about what Beezle said.

  Titania and Oberon’s actions didn’t make sense. Even if they believed I owed them for Amarantha’s death, the matter should have been settled after I killed the Hob. They had to know that if the Morningstar got involved, it would be bad for everyone. It was almost as if they were…

  “They’re picking a fight with Lucifer,” I said aloud. “But why?”

  “Remember what Jude told us when Wade was missing? All the courts are choosing sides for a future war.”

  “Yeah, but Titania and Oberon are not just lining up on one side of the battlefield or the other. They’re actually trying to start the war.”

  “What’s in it for them?” Chloe asked.

  “I don’t know. They must think they’ll get the spoils. But this brings us back to what we were just talking about. Lucifer is more powerful than anyone knows, so there’s no way they could win.”

  “Except maybe he’s not,” Chloe said.

  “You think Lucifer is not as powerful as he’s perceived to be?” Beezle asked.

  I thought about the strain of magic that ran in me from Lucifer’s line, diluted by hundreds of generations and yet infinitely stronger than any other power I carried.

  “He is that strong,” I said. “But the faeries must think they’ve got something stronger.”

  Beezle looked at me. “Or that they’ve found his weakness.”

  “I am not Lucifer’s weakness. He would happily throw me on a bonfire if he thought he could get something out of it.”

  “Maybe before, but not now,” Beezle said pointedly.

  “But they don’t know about…” I said, trailing off. I didn’t want to talk about the baby in front of Chloe.

  “If that meaningful silence is for me, don’t bother. I can totally tell that you’re pregnant.”

  “Really? How?”

  “You’ve got that puffy look that pregnant women get.”

  “I’m maybe two weeks pregnant. I do not look puffy.”

  Chloe’s eyebrows winged up to her hairline. “Whoa. So you look like this all the time?”

  “Moving on,” I said. “There’s no way the faeries could know. And even if they did, I don’t think killing me is the best way to weaken Lucifer. I don’t think he would sit at home crying over me; do you?”

  “No. He would probably blast the entire kingdom of Faerie into oblivion,” Beezle said.

  “Exactly. So it doesn’t make sense. Nothing they’ve done makes sense.”

  A headache was brewing between my eyes. There were too many plots, too many loose strands to collect. Azazel and the vampires on one side, Titania and Ober
on and their obsession with vengeance on another. A common desire to overthrow Lucifer linked them both. Were the two plots connected, or was it just coincidence that they both decided now was the time? Why had Lucifer suddenly been perceived as vulnerable?

  I didn’t have enough information to try to decipher the ways and means of Lucifer’s enemies. So I had to focus on what I did have—Azazel’s notebook.

  While Chloe and Beezle demolished the rest of the pancakes, I explained what had happened the day before.

  “So we need to find out what Azazel’s experiments are all about,” I said, presenting her the binder that Nathaniel had found.

  She took it from me with a look of gleeful curiosity on her face, scanning the pages quickly.

  “He’s definitely using some known chemicals, but some of the other symbols seem to be unique,” Chloe said, frowning over Azazel’s equations.

  “Maybe they’re shorthand for magic?” I asked.

  “Possibly, but there’s no sure way to establish what magic he might have invoked for each symbol,” she said.

  My face fell. “So we have no way of breaking down these formulas?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Chloe said with a touch of asperity. “I just need a little time.”

  “I don’t know how much time we have,” I said grimly.

  “Then I guess I’ll have to get to work,” she said, pushing away from the table and tucking the binder under her arm.

  “J.B. said there’s been some flak about outside projects at the Agency,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. I know how to avoid getting caught,” she said.

  Samiel was standing at the sink washing the prep dishes. She approached him like a big cat stalking its prey. A second before Chloe reached him, Samiel turned, almost as if he sensed her approach. His eyes widened as she flattened herself against him and pressed her lips against his.

  I turned my head away, hiding my smile under my hand. When I looked back Chloe was marching toward the front door with a satisfied look on her face, and Samiel appeared stunned.

  Beezle opened his mouth, like he was going to make a smart remark, and I shook my head at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Leave Samiel alone. He has enough to handle without you giving him a hard time,” I said.

  “What’s with the new touchy-feely policy in this house?” Beezle complained. “I hope you aren’t going to turn into a wuss just because you’re having a baby.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure I can drum up enough smart remarks about your personality flaws to keep you happy,” I said.

  “What personality flaws?” Beezle asked indignantly.

  I pushed away from the table. “I’ve got a soul pickup this morning. Since I doubt that you’ll return to your regularly scheduled job—”

  “What’s the point of guarding this house? Everything that shows up to attack either gets you while you’re on the front lawn anyway or it rings the doorbell.”

  “Since you’re not doing much these days besides driving Samiel up the wall, you can go back to your online buddies and collect some more information for me. Find out who’s leading the opposition in Titania and Oberon’s court.”

  “Why? You think they’ll cut a deal with you?” Beezle asked.

  “It doesn’t hurt to find out who might be receptive to me if I decide to approach them,” I said.

  “Just be careful…” Beezle began.

  “I know. Faeries are deceptive. Don’t worry. You be careful, too. You never know who you’re talking to online.”

  “Yes, I do,” Beezle said.

  “You can’t possibly think that everyone is truthful about their identity.”

  “Of course I don’t think that. But gargoyles can see the true nature of things, and that means that I know when someone is lying to me about their identity, even online,” Beezle said.

  “That’s… really weird,” I said. “But useful.”

  Beezle shrugged. “Magic is often weird but useful.”

  I went to dress and check the time and place of my soul pickup. It was on Southport in an hour, just under the Brown Line stop. There was an asterisk next to the name, and the footnote at the bottom of the page said, “Possibility of collateral damage.”

  That didn’t sound like a routine soul collection. I was surprised that I was the only one assigned if there was the possibility of other deaths. It was annoying that the Agency seers hadn’t bothered to give me any further information. They knew how the person was going to die. Didn’t they think it would help me to know that, too?

  The thing about the Agency seers is that they like to keep Agents in the dark. There’s always a possibility that an Agent might try to prevent a death if he or she knew how the death would occur. That is absolutely, positively not allowed. Once a death is foreseen, that’s it. It’s in the books, and no matter how unfair or gruesome that death may be, we are not allowed to stop it.

  I slung my sword over my shoulder. “Possibility of collateral damage” meant that only one death was certain; the others could be prevented. It was best to be prepared for anything.

  I pulled on a coat, hat and gloves, and made sure Beezle and Samiel knew where I was going—no sense in having them raise the alarm again. Then I flew out the back window toward Southport, which was east of my house.

  The winter sun shone so bright I regretted not bringing sunglasses, but it was still close to zero degrees with the wind chill. The snow on the streets and sidewalks was getting that grungy look, gray from dirt and pollution. The cars on the street were coated in a thin film of salt.

  Cloaked by my Agent’s magic, I landed near the corner of Roscoe and Southport, in front of a liquor shop that was connected to the El station. On the other side of the station was a two-story building under construction that would eventually hold a fitness center and some more shops.

  I checked the clock on my cell phone and saw that it was a few minutes until showtime. I hadn’t identified the soul yet, so I settled in to wait.

  A minute or two later a college-age girl stepped out of the El stop. She was bundled up so thoroughly I could see only her eyes peeking above her scarf and the long strands of her ponytail emerging from under her hat. Her backpack looked like it was laden with textbooks. She turned north when she left the station, away from me, and I pushed away from the wall. This was Jayne Wiskowski, and her death had already been written.

  I followed her slowly, my boots crunching in the ice and snow even though no one could see me. I didn’t see any sign of her impending doom.

  The tattoo in my right palm twitched. Something was coming.

  One second it wasn’t there, and the next second it was, like it had crawled through a fold in time and space to appear directly in front of Jayne.

  The creature looked like a long and elegant preying mantis, albeit one the size of an NBA player. It closed a pincer around her neck and squeezed.

  I broke into a run, the sword in my hand before I could think about it. The pincer, sharp as a Santoku, sliced through her neck before I’d taken three steps.

  A woman pushing two toddlers in a double stroller a few feet away screeched as Jayne’s head fell from her shoulders and rolled onto the sidewalk. Arterial blood spurted as her body collapsed. Her soul poured out in a stream of ectoplasm, mouth open in the scream she’d never had the opportunity to utter.

  The mantis looked at me, and something like a smile ghosted across its alien features. I realized that I was the only one who could see the creature. And it was turning toward the screaming mother and her crying kids.

  I didn’t have time to think about Jayne’s confused soul. I charged the creature and brought the sword down, aiming for the soft, vulnerable joint at its shoulder.

  The blade struck true, and the thing gave an ear-shattering cry of pain and anger. Gelatinous goo oozed from the wound.

  “What is that? What is that?” the mother screamed, backing away from the sound. She was getting dangerously close to t
he street, and her kids were freaking out more because their mom was losing it. “What’s happening?”

  She couldn’t see the creature, or me, but she could hear the monster’s cries. Behind me I heard the El rumbling into the station. In a minute a bunch of people would get off the train and find Jayne’s body. Then there would be a lot of fussing and running to and fro, and the creature would have more opportunities to kill. More opportunities for “collateral damage.”

  I had to take it out or get it away from the area. I couldn’t think about Jayne right now.

  The mantis slashed out at me, its pincers snapping at any part of me it could reach. I dodged away, striking back with the sword. The blade slid off the smooth carapace that covered the creature all over except at its joints, so if I didn’t strike in those precise spots, I was just wasting energy. I didn’t want to start throwing magic around. There were too many people, too many chances for things to go wrong.

  I drove the creature toward Newport, hoping to push it off the main thoroughfare and into the alley that was behind the candy store. A couple of concerned citizens had arrived in response to the mother’s cries, and had conveniently moved her off to the side, away from both the battle and the street.

  There was a hubbub of activity behind me now as more people found the body without a head and a crowd gathered. Sirens blared a few blocks away. There was a police station very close by on Addison, and the authorities would be arriving at any moment.

  The mantis clipped at my coat, snagging the material dangerously close to my neck but missing my skin. It cried out in frustration as I slashed at it, forcing it to move away from the crowd of people.

  I couldn’t do this all day. I could feel my energy flagging, the weariness that came from pregnancy covering me like a veil. I had to take a chance, and there was no one on the street behind the creature.

  I dropped the sword to one side, loosely gripping it in my left hand. The mantis lifted its pincer high like it was anticipating the need to block an attack. I stepped forward with my right foot, fluttered up on my wings and reached under the block with my hand, laying it on the visible flesh just under the creature’s head.