All I’d done was remove the eons of glamour and magic that Oberon had used to cloak himself, and reverted him back to his original form.
And his original form had just the smallest fraction of magic compared to the illusion he’d built up over time. It would take him centuries to return to the form he’d used to try to kill me.
“Madeline Black followed the rules of trial by combat as set forth,” Puck said. “By your own agreement, you are permitted no vengeance, whatever she has done.”
“Where lies your loyalty, Puck?” Titania asked, her eyes narrowed. “With your queen, or with this child of Lucifer?”
“My loyalty lies with my queen, so long as my queen is loyal to her word,” Puck replied.
“You would play the jester now, when your own lord has been brought low?” Titania said.
“If the jester is a truth teller, then that is what I shall play for you. My queen, do not jeopardize your court. Do not invite Lucifer’s wrath upon us,” Puck said.
The doors to the throne room opened, and everyone in court turned toward the sound.
Silhouetted in the sunshine that poured through the door was a tall, broad-shouldered man carrying a bow and arrows.
“Bendith!” Titania cried.
“Mother?” he asked, confusion evident in his voice. “What is happening?”
Bendith stepped into the throne room and his face was fully revealed.
I sucked in my breath, unable to disguise my shock. This was undoubtedly Titania’s son. He looked exactly like Titania, except for one feature.
His eyes were the exact same merry blue as Puck’s.
No wonder rumors had persisted doubting Oberon’s paternity. With eyes like that there could be no doubt who had fathered the heir to the court.
Everyone watched Bendith as he approached his mother. Everyone except for Puck, who was watching me. He nodded at me when I looked back at him, acknowledging the truth that must have been on my face.
“Mother, what has happened?” Bendith asked again. “Why is the combat ring set? Where is Father?”
Titania fell into her son’s arms with a dramatic flourish. She wept on his shoulder as he patted her back in bewilderment. It was so patently an act that I could hardly believe Bendith bought it.
“That… creature,” she said, pointing a manicured fingernail at me. “She has diminished your father.”
“Diminished?” he said, a crease forming between his brows. He was handsome, but there didn’t seem to be a lot going on upstairs.
Puck held out his hand to me while Titania was distracted by Bendith. I placed Oberon gently in his palm.
As my hand brushed against his, he replaced Oberon with something sharp and hard.
“You may use that for safe passage when the time comes,” he said, soft and quick so no one else could hear.
I carefully opened my palm and saw the glint of a small blue jewel there.
“How?” I whispered.
“There’s no place like home,” Puck said, and winked.
During this exchange Titania and Bendith had continued their conversation in an undertone. Now Bendith stood and faced me, nocking an arrow in his bow.
“Stand aside, Puck,” Bendith said. “I will take vengeance for my father.”
Puck did not move.
“I did not kill your father,” I said to Bendith.
“Yes, and for this you have violated the rules of the trial. This combat was proclaimed to end only with death,” he said.
Titania smiled behind him, and I knew who had planted this idea in Bendith’s head.
“So you would kill me for showing mercy?” I asked.
“You agreed to show none,” Bendith said.
“Your father and mother violated the rules of combat first, so they no longer applied to me,” I said.
Bendith hesitated, lowering his arrow a fraction.
“Do not heed the words of a child of the Deceiver,” Titania said. She was crafty, much craftier than I had thought. She knew exactly how to twist her son in knots so that she would get her way. “Kill her and take revenge for our family.”
“Oh, I’ve had enough of this,” I said, stepping around Puck and blasting Bendith in the face with my power.
It was just a little knockdown magic, not enough to harm him permanently, but Titania started yelling like I’d torn his arms off.
I grabbed Nathaniel by the hand, made sure Beezle was secure, and squeezed the jewel that Puck had given me.
“There’s no place like home,” I whispered.
And a second later, we were there, appearing in the dining room.
We shocked the hell out of Jude and Samiel, who were playing checkers at the dining room table. Samiel’s eyes widened when we appeared. Jude knocked over his chair in his haste to stand up and face us, obviously thinking we might be some kind of threat.
I dropped Nathaniel’s hand and rubbed my forehead. “Well, that did not go as I’d intended at all.”
Jude looked at me critically. “You’re covered in blood. Is any of it yours?”
“Some, but I’m okay,” I said. “I want a shower. And food.”
“And then you’ll tell us what happened,” Jude said.
“Beezle can fill you in,” I said, dropping my sword on the side table as I walked down the hall to the bathroom.
“Information comes with a price,” I heard Beezle say. “How many doughnuts will you give me if I tell you what happened?”
Jude growled in response and I laughed out loud as I shut the door. When I saw myself in the mirror I sobered.
I was covered in blood, and my cute new haircut stuck up all over the place. The gash in the shoulder of my T-shirt was huge, an indication of just how bad that cut had been before Nathaniel had healed it. The four claw marks the Hob had given me had hardened into white scars that ran from my eye to my chin on my left cheek. My eyes were hard. I looked like someone who possessed no mercy. And I was a little afraid that was what I was becoming.
There would be consequences for my actions in the faerie court. I knew it. Titania wouldn’t leave me alone now that I had diminished Oberon. No matter what the outcome of that fight, they had no intention of letting me live. I knew that now. Faeries loved loopholes, and you could bet that Titania was finding one in our pact at that very moment.
She would never stop hunting me.
How had this escalated so quickly? I’d started out just wanting to get through a simple diplomatic mission to Amarantha’s court, and now I was in a blood feud with the high queen of Faerie. When I looked back on the choices I’d made I didn’t see any other way for me to have survived. At every turn Amarantha, then Titania and Oberon, had pushed me, provoked me and tried to squash me beneath their heels.
“What should I have done?” I asked the girl in the mirror. “What could I have done differently?”
I didn’t have an answer, so I pulled off my bloody clothes and climbed in the shower. They had tried to kill me, over and over. Over and over I had defended myself, and I had tried to negotiate for a cessation of hostilities.
None of them had been interested in peace.
I’d had to kill Amarantha. I’d diminished Oberon.
Sooner or later I’d have to take care of Titania, too. And then her son would come after me, or someone else.
It would never end, not unless every last faerie was wiped from the earth.
I wondered if that was what Lucifer had in mind all along. To use me as his sword and shield, knowing that I would protect my child.
For when I thought about my baby I knew that I could and would slaughter every last denizen of Faerie if that was what it took to keep him safe.
It was frightening to think of myself that way, as a weapon without mercy. But it was also true. I knew that under the right circumstances that was what I could become.
But I didn’t want it to come to that. I didn’t want to spend my life always looking over my shoulder. And I especially was not interested
in doing anything that might serve Lucifer’s purpose.
I sighed. There was nothing I could do at the moment except wait and see what happened. And call J.B., who was not going to be happy with me at all.
I dressed in clean jeans and a sweater and put on a pair of heavy wool socks. The house felt really cold. It was possible that I’d forgotten to pay the heating bill. More than a few important things had slipped my mind lately.
I stopped short as I entered the dining room. “Crap. What day is it?”
“You were gone for about fifteen hours,” Jude said.
“So it’s tomorrow, then?” I said.
“Whatever that means,” Beezle said.
“It was late afternoon when we left, so it’s the next day,” I said, running back to my room and grabbing my soul collection list.
I scanned the list quickly, then closed my eyes.
I’d missed a pickup.
I couldn’t believe it. I’d missed a soul pickup.
That had never, ever happened to me before. I’d managed to lose Jayne Wiskowski yesterday and today I hadn’t even made it to the pickup location.
J.B. was really not going to be happy with me at all. Maybe I could call him at some later date and explain. Like three months from now. Unfortunately, I didn’t think he would let me dodge him for that long.
My shoulders slumped, I went back to the living room. The front door was open. Jude and Nathaniel were nowhere to be seen.
I looked questioningly at Beezle and Samiel. Beezle had taken over Jude’s half of the checkerboard and was beating Samiel handily.
Beezle negotiated for pizza and wings in exchange for information, Samiel signed as Jude reentered the apartment carrying a delivery bag.
“You didn’t have to let him get his way,” I said to Jude. “I would have told you what happened today for free.”
“You need to eat,” Jude said. “You’re looking thin.”
“You’re the third person to say that,” I said.
“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Beezle said, pushing away from the checkerboard and looking at me. “I think it’s the baby.”
“The baby is making me thin?” I asked. “That would no doubt be a first among pregnancies.”
“You’ve been really tired, right?” Beezle asked.
I nodded. “But I don’t think that’s so unusual for a woman having a baby while fighting off mortal threats at every turn.”
“You have lost some weight, though. I think the baby is eating up more energy than a normal baby.”
I blinked. “So I should be worried that my child is going to… what? Eat me from the inside out? Like a parasite?”
“The baby is part nephilim,” Beezle said. “We don’t know what it will do to you.”
“He’s not a monster,” I said angrily. “He’s Gabriel’s child, and Gabriel was not a monster.”
“But he had monster in him,” Beezle said.
So do I, Samiel signed, his face stony. Ramuell was my father, too.
“You’re a known quantity,” Beezle said impatiently. “The baby isn’t.”
“I refuse to believe this child will be like Ramuell,” I said. “Gabriel was the gentlest person I ever knew.”
“Regardless of what the baby is or is not,” Jude said, “we have to acknowledge that it comes from the bloodlines of immortal creatures, and you are mortal. You will not experience a normal human pregnancy.”
“Okay,” I said. “So I’m losing weight. Although my pants don’t feel any looser, so I’ll have to take your word for it. What am I supposed to do about it?”
“Eat more,” Jude said. “When a wolf goes through many changes in a short period of time, he can lose a lot of weight because of the energy required for the changes. Even a straight human pregnancy would mean extra calorie intake. Given that the child has a magical bloodline, you’ll probably have to add in a significant amount of food.”
“Food I can’t afford,” I muttered.
“All of us will help you. And I’m certain some of us can go without if necessary,” Jude said with a meaningful glare at Beezle.
“You have no idea how much food I need to get through the day,” Beezle said.
“Need and want are not the same thing,” I said, going to the kitchen to get paper plates.
Beezle had already gotten into the chicken wings by the time I returned. There was a large pile of bones next to him.
“I hope you placed a double order,” I said to Jude, who was watching Beezle in fascination.
“I had no idea something so small could eat so much so quickly,” he said.
“Where’s Nathaniel?” I asked.
Samiel shrugged as he placed a couple of slices of pizza on his plate. He went downstairs to clean up, he said.
“Is he getting a spa treatment?” I asked. “I had more blood on me than he did.”
I’ll go and see what he’s up to, if you want.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Just leave him alone. He obviously wants to be there.”
I didn’t need Nathaniel around reminding me that he’d saved my life in the faerie court by ridding me of the poison. Every time he was kind to me, it was harder and harder for me to remember that he had an agenda that did not correspond with mine.
After lunch I went to call J.B.
“Black,” he barked when he picked up the phone. “Why did you miss your pickup today? And what the hell happened to Jayne Wiskowski yesterday?”
I explained about the mantis attack, the disappearance of Wiskowski’s soul, and my little adventure in Titania and Oberon’s court. There was a long silence at J.B.’s end when I finished.
“Are you still breathing?” I asked.
“Yes, although I’m not sure why I bother,” J.B. said. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve gotten yourself into now?”
“I have a good idea,” I said.
“I’ll talk to you later,” J.B. said. “I need to go and see how much fallout there is from this in my own court.”
“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly.
“You keep saying that,” J.B. said, and hung up.
I was sorry. I was sorry that I caused J.B. so much pain. But I wasn’t sorry for what I had done in the court, and I think J.B. knew that.
I put my phone on the bedside table and crawled under the blankets. It was the middle of the day, but I was wiped out. On the heels of that thought came the memory of Beezle’s voice.
You’re a known quantity. The baby isn’t.
“You are not a monster,” I whispered.
The baby fluttered inside me, and I closed my eyes. And, sleeping, I dreamed.
I flew above the world, all the worlds that were, and I could see everything. I could see what had been, and what was, and what would be.
And I could see the path to the person that my heart longed for.
It was a green place, and peaceful, and he sat beside a river that ran as clear and bright as the sun that sparkled upon it.
He turned as I approached, and his face was wreathed with joy.
“Madeline,” he said.
The sound of his voice pierced me to the heart.
“Gabriel,” I said, and ran to him.
I was complete in his arms, and I wept for everything we had lost.
“Madeline,” he said again, and he crooned it over and over until my tears stopped. “I should have known.”
“Should have known what?”
He smiled down at me, his hands framing my face. “That you would do something unexpected. How have you come to be here? It is not allowed.”
I looked around. There didn’t seem to be anything distinguishing this place from any other pleasant green valley. “I thought I was dreaming.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Somehow you have defied the order of the universe, of time and space itself. And if anyone would, it would be you.”
“I was never very good at following the rules.”
“I am not cert
ain you even know what the rules are.” His face sobered. “But this is a place of the dead, and you do not belong here.”
I took his hand in mine. “I want to stay with you.”
Gabriel reluctantly pulled his hand away. “You cannot. You are not meant for this. Not yet.”
“Don’t send me away,” I said. “I need you.”
“Madeline,” Gabriel said, and his eyes were so tender. “My love will always be with you.”
He kissed me, and into his kiss he poured his happiness, his grief, his regret.
“Don’t,” I begged.
“You cannot stay,” he said.
He seemed to grow smaller before my eyes, and I realized he was not growing smaller. He was getting farther away. I was leaving, being pulled by some outside force, by the order of the universe righting itself.
“Gabriel!” I cried out.
He turned away.
“Gabriel!” I repeated, and went into darkness.
And in the darkness I was not alone. His mouth was on the back of my neck, his hands were on my chest, and I smelled cinnamon.
I opened my eyes in my own bedroom, and felt Gabriel moving in the bed beside me.
12
“GABRIEL,” I BREATHED, AND ROLLED OVER TO FACE HIM.
His lips covered mine, and that was when I knew something was wrong. I tore away, pushed out of the bed, tumbled to the floor.
“You’re not Gabriel,” I said, and called nightfire to my hand. “Who are you?”
The ball of flame that hovered above my palm lit the room in an eerie blue light. The person on the bed smiled Gabriel’s smile at me, and then it dissolved into the merry, impish smile of Puck.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Enjoying the company of a beautiful woman,” Puck replied, giving his eyebrows a suggestive wiggle.
“Wrong question,” I said, and realized I was on the verge of losing my temper. Puck had come into my home and pretended to be Gabriel. He’d manipulated my grief for his own purpose. He’d better have a damned good reason or I’d blast him back to Faerie, despite the fact that he’d helped save my life there. “How did you get here, and why?”
“Which question would you like me to answer first?” Puck asked.
“Don’t you dare toy with me, or I’ll blow you into a million pieces.”
Black Lament Page 14
