“Are you really going to let me get home by myself?” I asked.
“You fly by yourself all the time,” he mumbled.
Gods above and below, he could be so dense sometimes. Especially if he was focused on paperwork. It was like it had some kind of magical sway over him.
“J.B.,” I said loudly, hoping my tone would cut through the fog caused by the delight of completing forms in triplicate.
He looked up again, and this time it seemed like his eyes finally focused on me. He seemed to realize I wanted him for something.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said, putting down his pen and grabbing his coat. “I lost track of time.”
“I’m used to it,” I said.
“So where do you want to eat? You want a pizza?” J.B. said, playing along as we walked past the cubicle maze on the way to the elevators.
“We eat enough pizza at my house. Beezle thinks takeout is one of the four food groups,” I said as the elevator doors opened and we stepped in.
“The four food groups are over,” J.B. said. “Now there’s a plate or something.”
“I thought it was a pyramid?”
“Nope, that’s come and gone already.”
We continued talking about nothing in particular until we were outside the Agency and a block away.
“Let’s fly,” I said, and we both pushed our wings out.
We disappeared from the sight of ordinary people, but any Agent would still be able to see us. I glanced behind to see if anyone was following us. There was nobody I could see, but the back of my neck tingled. Maybe it was just the lingering effects of Sokolov’s visit.
“What’s up?” J.B. asked after a few minutes.
“Wait until we get home,” I said, and he didn’t press me.
We landed on the lawn. Everything looked normal. There were no monsters waiting to attack, no effigies burning on the front walk. The lights were on in Samiel’s apartment. I could see the flickering blue light of the television set through the front picture window of the upper floor. It looked like every lamp had been turned on as well.
“Beezle should know better,” I said. “He’s going to kill my electricity bill.”
Curiously, I could also see lights on in the basement, and the shadow of someone moving around behind the curtain.
I pushed open the foyer door and unlocked the door to my apartment. J.B. followed me upstairs.
“Hello?” I called as I entered, expecting a chorus of greetings in reply. But no one answered.
“Hello?” I repeated, dropping my coat on the table as I went toward the back of the house.
No one was in the kitchen, and the back door was open. I went to the top of the stairs and heard Nathaniel’s, Jude’s and Beezle’s voices.
“Where did it go?” Nathaniel shouted.
“That way, that way, you idiot!” Jude roared.
“What’s going on?” J.B. asked, standing behind me.
“Search me,” I said, starting down the steps.
“Watch out!” Beezle said. “It almost got into the pipes again.”
“Why don’t you help instead of telling us things we already know?” Jude said.
“I am helping. I’m watching—there it goes! Toward the washing machine!” Beezle said.
“Sounds like there’s a mouse in the house,” J.B. said.
“Yeah, but why would they be freaking out over a mouse?” I said as we entered the basement.
My basement is not the cleanest part of my house. It’s just one big room, and I’ve got a lot of junk stacked in boxes all over the place. There was an old pullout sofa at the far end. An ancient washer and dryer stood a few feet from the bottom steps.
Nathaniel had pushed the washer away from the wall and was on his hands and knees, reaching with a tennis racket. Jude crouched on the other side of the washing machine, his hands cupped and close to the ground. They both looked sweaty and harassed. Beezle fluttered over to J.B. and me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Trying to catch the rat-demon that got in the house,” Beezle said.
“Gah,” I said with a shudder. I’d seen the internal organs of many a monster without blinking, but the thought of rats in the house gave me the heebie-jeebies. “Where’s Samiel?”
“Waiting upstairs at an entry point in case the thing escapes through the wall,” Beezle said. “There’s a big hole in his apartment near the heater.”
“Yeah, I keep meaning to fix that,” I said. “Why don’t you just blast the thing and be done with it?”
“Because,” Nathaniel said, as he swatted at the squeaking thing with the tennis racket. “It is immune to magic. That is how it managed to get in the house in the first place. It found an opening in the outside wall and was able to construe that as an invitation.”
“What are you going to do with it once you catch it?” I asked.
“Question it,” Jude said grimly. “It’s a spy.”
“I didn’t know either of you spoke rat,” I said, and Jude spared me a dirty look.
There was an increase in the pitch and frequency of the demon’s squeaks. I shuddered again. There’s just something about rats that makes even the most easygoing person cringe.
“Ha!” Nathaniel said as he swung the racket one last time. Jude gave a satisfied grunt and stood up. The creature squealed, and Nathaniel pulled the handle of the racket along the floor as the little demon made horrible noises.
When the head of the racket emerged from behind the washing machine, I saw why the monster was howling so. Nathaniel had basically squashed it to the ground under the netting, so the rat-demon was imprisoned between the wire of the racket and the floor. It was pressed so flat I was surprised it wasn’t dead already.
“We need a jar or something to keep it in,” J.B. said as the demon tried to wriggle out of the cage Nathaniel had made.
“There’s that empty plastic container from Costco that had all those cheese puffs in it,” Beezle said. “I don’t think it went out to the recycle bin yet.”
“You ate all those cheese puffs already?” I shouted after him as he went upstairs to get it.
“Where do rat-demons come from?” I asked Nathaniel.
“They don’t ally themselves with any particular creature or particular court. They’re mercenaries, willing to work for whomever will feed the nest,” he said.
I crouched down and looked in the thing’s beady black eyes. Up close it appeared less ratlike and more like a demon. What I had thought was fur was actually tiny scales. It stared at me with such malice that I felt goose bumps break out. “So how do we talk to it? Don’t we need a translator or something?”
“No,” Nathaniel said. “It can understand every word we say. And the squeaking is for effect. It can speak English, and just about any other language you can think of.”
I suppressed my revulsion and leaned a little closer. “Who sent you?”
14
THE VOICE THAT CAME FROM THE CREATURE’S MOUTH was high-pitched and eerie. “A horror that you cannot imagine, Madeline Black.”
“Yeah, like I’ve never heard that before,” I said, sitting back on my heels.
Nathaniel pressed down harder on the netting and the demon squealed even louder. “Answer the question.”
“You’re going to squash it,” Jude said mildly, but he didn’t sound like that would be particularly upsetting.
Beezle returned with Samiel in tow. My brother-in-law carried the cheese puff container. A few tiny holes had been punched in the red lid so the monster wouldn’t suffocate.
Samiel opened the top of the jar and kneeled on the floor next to Nathaniel.
Quick as lightning, Nathaniel lifted the racket, grabbed the rat-demon’s tail and dropped it inside the jar. Samiel screwed the top closed while the thing was still scrabbling around inside.
“Who sent you?” I repeated.
The rat-demon ignored me. It bared its teeth and started scraping at the plastic.
“Can it chew its way out?” I asked the room in general.
“Probably,” Beezle said. “A regular Chicago alley rat can chew through concrete.”
“That is disgusting,” J.B. said.
“Yeah, and you’d better wash your hands,” I said to Nathaniel. “The gods know where that thing has been.”
Nathaniel scowled. “I’ll be right back.”
“We really can’t use magic on this thing?” I said.
“It would be pointless,” Beezle said. “It’s too small to be affected.”
“Well, that’s annoying,” I said. “You’re the one who told me that most things don’t like…”
I trailed off, and Beezle’s eyes gleamed.
“Yeah,” he said. “That ought to do it.”
“What?” Jude asked.
“Bring that thing upstairs,” I said to Samiel, and led the parade up to my apartment. Nathaniel joined the crowd in my kitchen a few moments later.
I rummaged through my pantry until I found an old sauté pan that I wouldn’t mind throwing away afterward. Then I put it on my gas stove and turned the flame underneath very high.
“Put the jar in the pan,” I said to Samiel.
He looked slightly revolted, but he did it.
The demon squealed some more, frantically scratching at the sides of the jar with its claws.
“This is going to smell,” J.B. said.
“And it will probably set off the smoke detectors,” Nathaniel added, taking the detector in the hallway down and opening the case to release the batteries.
Jude opened all the windows in the kitchen, letting in the frigid air from outside as the acrid odor of burning plastic filled the air.
“I can’t help but feel like we’ve reached some kind of low,” Beezle said. “We’ve got an angel, a half-breed nephilim, a werewolf, a gargoyle and a couple of Agents of unusual bloodline, and we’re all standing around the kitchen watching a rat-demon get burnt.”
“You’re not wrong,” J.B. said.
“You wouldn’t think it’s a low if that creature had escaped back to its master with information you’d thought was confidential,” Nathaniel said. “Or if it had completed its mission and then returned with the remainder of its nest.”
“I would burn the house down before I would live here with a rat infestation,” I said.
“Given your penchant for burning buildings, this does not surprise me in the least,” Beezle said.
The bottom of the jar started to melt as the heat in the pan increased. The demon screamed as its clawed feet were scorched. The air blowing in from outside barely disguised the stench of burning chemicals mixed with rat. Smoke billowed around the kitchen, and we all covered our faces with our sleeves.
“Let me out, let me out, LET ME OUT!” the demon screamed.
“Who sent you?” I repeated for the third time.
“Antares! Antares!” it said.
“So he is still alive, then,” I said. “Is he working with Azazel? Are they together now?”
The rat screeched in pain as the jar began to melt more rapidly. Hot plastic dripped from the top and sides onto the demon’s scales.
“Let me out, let me out!”
“Where is Antares?” I demanded.
“In the Forbidden Lands!” the rat-demon screamed.
“Is Azazel with him?” I asked.
“No! No! Let me out! Let me out!”
“Where is Azazel?” I asked.
The rat-demon howled. Its legs were almost entirely encased in melted plastic, and I think its feet were attached to the bottom of the pan.
“Where is Azazel?” I repeated.
“I don’t know, I don’t know! I told you what you wanted to know—now let me out!”
“I never said I would let you out,” I said.
The rat-demon’s eyes widened in terror. The six of us stood and watched as Antares’ minion was killed by inches.
It took a long time. Jude went to open more windows.
When it was nothing but a blackened husk, Nathaniel scooped up the pan and took it outside to the Dumpster in the alley.
“I feel dirty,” Beezle said as Nathaniel came back inside.
“Yeah, it doesn’t exactly feel like a victory, does it?” I said tiredly.
The back of my neck tingled, and again I had the sensation of being watched.
“Let’s get the windows closed,” I said. “And, Nathaniel—is there some way to put a veil over us so no one can eavesdrop from outside?”
“Paranoid much?” Beezle asked.
“I don’t think it’s that outrageous. We just had a rat-demon in our house trying to spy on us for Antares,” I said. “I’d rather our plans were not generally known.”
“It can be done, yes,” Nathaniel said. “But we would all have to stay in the same area, under a bubble, so to speak.”
“Let’s all sit around the dining room table,” I said.
“If we’re sitting at the table, then we should bring snacks,” Beezle said. “It only makes sense.”
“How much popcorn did you eat while I was out?” I asked.
Samiel held up three fingers. He snuck the last bowl when I wasn’t looking.
“You don’t need any snacks,” I said.
We all collected around the table, and Nathaniel cast the spell. I had the uncomfortable sensation of my ears popping as the veil surrounded us, and I cracked my jaw so I could hear properly.
They already knew about Azazel and the vampire attack, so I filled everyone in on Sokolov’s threats at the Agency. J.B. seemed shocked.
“I can’t believe they sent him personally to threaten you,” he said. “They must really think you’re high-risk.”
“I don’t intend the Agency any harm,” I said. “I don’t know why they won’t leave me alone.”
“You’re a danger to their order,” J.B. said. “If they let you run wild, then other Agents might start getting ideas about defying their authority.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t really care about the Agency and their control issues except to the extent that they get in my way. I think somebody followed us home,” I said.
It makes sense that they would have you under surveillance, Samiel said.
“It’s a waste of resources. Why follow me and wait for me to screw up? Why not use every available Agent to find their missing coworkers?” I said.
“Because…” J.B. began.
“I know—they don’t want to get involved. We don’t need to go over it again. It pisses me off. There are two things we need to focus on now. The first is finding the Agents. The second is finding Azazel.”
“With any luck they’ll be in the same place,” Jude said.
“Have you tried asking Lucifer for help?” Beezle asked. “Because you’re his Hound of the Hunt.”
“Yeah? So?”
“If he ordered you to find Azazel, you would be compelled to hunt him until you found him, and you would have the knowledge to help you do so,” Beezle said.
I stared at him. “You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier? I would have asked Lucifer to help me when he was here last instead of taking me to Titania and Oberon. And I wouldn’t have bothered with that debacle at Azazel’s mansion.”
Beezle shrugged. “You went to the mansion without telling me you were going, and anyway, I thought you knew that would happen if you were the Hound of the Hunt. Everyone was so depressed when Lucifer bestowed that office upon you. Besides, I figured you wouldn’t want to use that skill except as a last resort. I didn’t think you’d like being under Lucifer’s compulsion.”
“Well, no, I wouldn’t. But I would put up with it if that meant I could find Azazel. And now my useless grandfather isn’t picking up his phone. Again,” I said. “You’d think he would have told me that he could do that.”
“Which means that he has some reason of his own for not wanting you to find Azazel easily,” Jude said.
“I don’t even want to think a
bout what that reason might be,” I said grimly. “Either this rebellion is a farce, or he’s looking to profit from Azazel’s actions in some way that I haven’t yet figured out.”
“Lord Lucifer’s ways are mysterious,” Nathaniel said. “But the rebellion was not a farce; that, I can tell you. Azazel despises Lucifer.”
“So he’s hoping to profit from Azazel’s insanity,” I said. “And in the meantime it suits him to have me running in circles trying to find Azazel.”
“Does that mean we shouldn’t try to find the Agents?” J.B. said.
“No. I won’t leave them to Azazel’s tender care,” I said, thinking of the humans that had been caged in his labs.
“So the best lead we have is Antares in the Forbidden Lands,” J.B. said. “If we can find him, maybe he’ll lead us to Azazel.”
“Have you ever been in the Forbidden Lands?” I asked. “Because I have. It’s a giant wasteland, and in between deserts there are mountain ranges with a thousand nooks and crannies to hide in.”
Samiel rapped the table so that we would look at him. I grew up there, remember? I know some places that he might hide.
“We’ve got to try,” J.B. said.
I rubbed my eyes tiredly. I was getting a headache again. “Did Chloe tell you if she’d found anything in the notebook?”
“She said she thought she’d cracked it, but she wasn’t able to tell me what she’d found. We were in the office and there were a ton of other people around,” J.B. said.
“I wonder if she left any notes in her apartment,” I said.
“I don’t think breaking and entering would look very good to upper management if you are being followed,” J.B. said.
“I don’t have to break and enter,” I said. “I’m the Hound of the Hunt. I can pass through walls and all that good stuff, even if Lucifer doesn’t tell me to do so. If Chloe left some notes, we may be able to figure out what Azazel is doing. And if we can figure out what he’s doing, then maybe we can work out where he’s hiding.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Jude said.
“Then we’ll go to the Forbidden Lands and see if we can find my cockroach of a half brother,” I said. “But first we have to get rid of this tail. I don’t want some Agency stooge hanging around when I expressly disobey Sokolov’s orders.”
Black Lament Page 17
