“It’s strange,” Jude said thoughtfully. “I believe you when you say that you’re being followed, but I didn’t smell anything unusual outside when I opened the windows.”
“And what does that mean?” I asked. “Why does everything that happens to me have to be mysterious? Why can’t I just have a straightforward situation—Agency wants me followed, Agent follows me, we neutralize whatever sad sack got stuck with the job? Why does there have to be something weird?”
“Obviously because the Agency is terrified of you, and thus has sent their best and most unique Agent to follow you,” Nathaniel said.
“I wonder…” J.B. said, his eyes widening.
“What?” I asked.
“I wonder if it’s Bryson,” he said.
“Bryson the invincible?” I asked. I put my head in my hands. “No. No, no, no. I don’t need any super-soldiers hunting me. Doesn’t my life already suck? Do I need this, too?”
“Who’s Bryson?” Jude asked.
“He’s like the ultimate Agent,” I said. “He’s got a perfect record—never a ghost or a lost soul in the thirty years he’s been collecting. And for the last ten years he’s been leader of some elite unit that takes only the most difficult cases. He’s awesome.”
“But so are you,” Nathaniel said. “Do not underestimate yourself. You have surely overcome creatures far more powerful than a mere Agent.”
“I’ve overcome those creatures through a combination of luck, willpower and magic. Most of the time I take advantage of their emotions, like I did with Oberon. But you can’t do that with Bryson. He’s like a robot.”
“In other words, he’s the exact opposite of you. You’re emotional and impulsive,” Jude said.
“Don’t forget prone to pyromania,” Beezle added.
“He’s logical and orderly,” Jude said, continuing as if Beezle had not spoken. “So we play to your strengths in order to disarm his.”
“You’re suggesting that if she acts like her usual spastic self, it will throw this guy off the scent?” Beezle said skeptically. “That doesn’t seem like much of a plan.”
“This may come as a surprise to you, but most of the things I do don’t have much of a plan,” I said.
“That is not any surprise to me at all,” Beezle said. “I always suspected you just did whatever came into your head at the moment.”
“I do not think we should assume this super-soldier, as you call him, is the one following you,” Nathaniel said. “It may be someone else entirely.”
“No,” I said. “J.B.’s probably right. Bryson is likely the only one who could effectively hide himself from Jude.”
“But now that I know he’s out there somewhere, I can find him,” Jude said. “Lack of scent is just as powerful a signature as a strong smell.”
“You mean you would be able to sense where he is from the empty space, so to speak?”
Jude nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get rid of Bryson, and then I’ll go to Chloe’s.”
“You’re not going alone,” everyone said, and Samiel signed it for good measure.
“Yes, yes, I know you all have to pretend I’m small and helpless so you can feel more confident in your masculinity,” I said.
“Nobody here believes you helpless,” Nathaniel said.
“But you are small,” Jude said.
“Definitely the smallest one here besides Beezle,” J.B. said.
And Beezle’s not that much smaller than you are, Samiel added.
“All right, all right. You’ve all had your fun at the expense of the short person. Listen, I don’t want Bryson hurt,” I said.
“How are we supposed to neutralize him without hurting him?” Nathaniel said. “He will surely fight.”
“Don’t hurt him any more than necessary,” I said. “He’s not malicious. He’s just following orders. He doesn’t know any other way to be.”
So what’s the plan? Samiel signed.
“The first thing is that we’ve got to get Jude outside so he can sniff around, but Bryson can’t suspect.”
“I could put Jude under a veil while also cloaking myself,” Nathaniel said. “Then we could explore to our heart’s content without his knowledge.”
I shook my head. “Too complicated. Besides, I bet he’ll have some way of detecting the presence of a veil. He’s a super-soldier, remember? We don’t want to spook him.”
“How about you go outside and stare longingly at the stars like you’re missing Gabriel, and the rest of your entourage follows you out because they’re worried about you?” Beezle suggested.
“Then everyone is standing still, and how will Jude sniff around? We need to all be outside and moving around, but not in a way that will make Bryson suspicious.”
We all fell silent, trying to come up with some logical reason for us to be outside in the snow on a frigid January night.
“Let’s make a snowman,” I said.
“A snowman?” Jude said, looking skeptical.
“Yeah, a snowman. We’ll all be outside running around the yard collecting snow, so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to sniff around. Bryson will have no reason to suspect that we’re trying to find him.”
“I thought we’d reached a low when we tortured the rat-demon. Now you want to try to trick Mr. Awesome Agent by playing in the snow?” Beezle said.
“You were the one who said I should be my usual spastic self,” I said. “Building a snowman gets all of us outside. And Nathaniel and Jude don’t even have to actually do the building. You can stand around and look bored, or sneer, or whatever. It will look like you want to keep an eye on me but don’t want to participate.”
“I don’t want to participate, either,” Beezle said. “Rolling around in the snow is not my idea of fun.”
“Then stay inside. But you’re not getting anything else to eat.”
None of the others looked too thrilled with my idea, either.
“If anyone else has a suggestion, I’m happy to hear it,” I said.
“I guess it could work,” J.B. said reluctantly.
“It will totally work,” I said with a confidence I did not feel. The truth was, I thought it was kind of a dumb idea, too. But a lot of my dumb ideas seemed to work out. I laid out the basic plan and everyone agreed.
I pushed away from the table and said to Nathaniel, “Drop the veil now.”
My ears popped as the veil disappeared. I made a big show of being annoyed.
“Fine, the rest of you do what you want,” I said loudly. “I’m going outside.”
“Yeah, go outside and get yourself killed by another thing from Faerie,” J.B. said. “That’s real smart.”
“I’m not going to stay locked up in this house forever just because you think I should live under glass,” I said, grabbing my coat and stomping toward the back door.
Samiel followed me. Maybe you should listen to J.B.
“Not you, too,” I said, and clattered down the steps toward the outside door.
I threw the door open with a huff and went out to the back porch. I looked around for a moment, like I was trying to gather my thoughts. I couldn’t see any sign of Bryson, but my spider-sense was tingling. He was here somewhere.
Samiel tapped me on the shoulder, holding up my hat and mittens.
Forget something? he asked. He was already bundled up.
I took the hat and gloves from him. “Thanks. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
I went down the three stairs to the yard and kicked the snow around, doing my best imitation of a person torn between depression and anger. It wasn’t that big of a stretch. I missed Gabriel every second of the day, and I was angry at constantly being hounded by threats and assassins.
Samiel tapped me on the shoulder, holding out a small, perfectly formed snowball. Want to make a snowman?
I smiled at him, like I was letting him cheer me up. “Sure.”
We started rolling the snowman’s bottom half. A few moments later Ju
de and Nathaniel came outside.
“Where’s J.B.?” I asked.
“He left,” Jude said.
Actually, J.B. had gone around front and intended to circle back by way of the alley. I felt that Bryson had to be flying or resting somewhere at second-story height, because he would want to see and hear what was going on inside my apartment. My hope was that he would be focused on me and not paying attention to J.B.’s approach from the alley.
Jude prowled around the perimeter of the yard like he was bored. Nathaniel walked to the fence that separated my property from the alley and leaned against it, watching us.
After a while Beezle came outside. He couldn’t stand not being in the middle of things. He had a scarf wrapped around his horns and another one wrapped several times around his middle.
“Why is it we’re outside freezing our butts off?”
“Can you not see that we’re building a snowman?” I said.
“I can see. I just want to know why,” Beezle said.
“I needed some air.”
“You needed air that’s only seventeen degrees?”
“Go back inside if you’re going to be annoying,” I said.
At that moment, Jude leapt over my head. As he did, he transformed into a shaggy red-and-gray wolf.
Nathaniel launched after Jude. I heard the sound of a wolf slamming into a human body with tremendous force. I spun around and saw the veil that was hiding Bryson fall away as Jude attacked.
The Agent slashed out with the knife he gripped in his right hand, but Nathaniel was there before the blade could strike Jude. The knife fell into the snow. The angel held Bryson’s wrists to the ground and Jude stood on his chest, growling.
J.B. flew over the fence and landed beside me. “Did I miss all the fun already?”
“Yup,” I said, approaching the three men in the snow.
Bryson stared up at me with cold blue eyes. His gray hair was buzzed close to his head and he had the wiry, tough look of a lifelong soldier.
“What are you doing here, Bryson?” I asked conversationally.
“You know the answer to that, or else you wouldn’t have even suspected I was here,” he said. His voice was low and gravelly, like that guy who does the voiceovers for truck commercials.
“Were you supposed to just watch and report, or did Sokolov have something else in mind?” I asked.
Bryson said nothing.
“Right,” I said. “You can’t say.”
“If you’re going to kill me, do it now,” Bryson said. “You’ll get nothing from me by torture.”
“I’m not going to torture you,” I said, offended.
Bryson narrowed his eyes skeptically. “I saw what happened to the rat.”
“The rat was a demon, and it was spying on me,” I said. “I wouldn’t do that to another Agent.”
“I’m spying on you.”
“You act like you want me to set you on fire,” I said, annoyed. “Look, all I want is for you to back off. Go home and tell Sokolov that I stayed home all night like a good little girl.”
“That would be a violation of protocol,” Bryson said.
“Listen, what did Sokolov tell you I was up to?” I asked. “Because I’m not doing anything bad here. I’m trying to find and rescue the Agents that were kidnapped today.”
“You’ve been ordered to keep out of it,” Bryson said.
“Yeah, and the Agency won’t do anything to rescue those people. Does that really sit well with you?” I asked.
His mouth tightened, but he didn’t respond.
“So you don’t like it, either, but you won’t do anything about it. Is that it?”
Bryson continued with the silent treatment.
“Fine. If that’s how you’re going to be about it,” I said. “Tie him up and put him in the basement. Samiel and Nathaniel, take turns standing guard. And make sure you search him—I’m sure he’s got weapons in every pocket.”
“You will regret this,” Bryson said as Nathaniel hauled him to his feet.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I know that you’re under orders, and you think you can’t defy the Agency. So I’m not going to hurt you. But I can’t let you report back to Sokolov, either.”
His eyes burned as Nathaniel and Jude dragged him in the house, and I knew that I had made yet another enemy.
15
“HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP HIM HERE?” J.B. asked. “Sooner or later someone from the Agency will come looking for him.”
“Just until the morning,” I said. “That will give us time to search Chloe’s apartment.”
“And what then?” Jude asked.
“We’ll kick Bryson loose, and he’ll have to go back to Sokolov and say that he failed. But they’ll have no proof that I did anything wrong,” I said.
“What if we have to go into the Forbidden Lands?” J.B. said.
“If Bryson really wants to follow us into the Forbidden Lands, then he’s welcome to it. But I don’t think he’d be able to. We’d probably have to go through a portal, and we could easily prevent him from entering. So again, no proof that we’re doing anything wrong.”
“I don’t know,” J.B. said. “Somehow I don’t think Bryson or Sokolov are going to take this well.”
“I can’t worry about Bryson’s feelings,” I said. “Or Sokolov’s, for that matter. They’re the ones who came after me. I can either roll over and let them have their way, or I can defy them and save the missing Agents.”
J.B. scrubbed his hands through his hair, always a sign that he was under stress. “I know. But the fallout…”
“Will be what it will be. You knew that when you asked me to come downtown and see that massacre. You knew that I would go after Azazel.”
“But that was before the Agency sent one of their goons to threaten you,” J.B. said. “The stakes are higher now.”
“I’m not leaving Chloe, or any of the others, to Azazel,” I said steadily. “Bryson’s out of the picture for now. Let’s work the problem a step at a time.”
“Is this how you get through the day?” J.B. asked. “By only looking at what’s directly in front of you?”
“Since my typical day involves conspiracies of the fallen, Agency and faerie nature, regular attempts on my life and a cascade of shocking revelations, yes. If I tried to take in the big picture, I’d probably lose my mind.”
“So what are we doing now, then?” Beezle asked. He still sat on the railing of the porch. I’d forgotten he was even outside.
“You go inside and help Samiel and Nathaniel,” I said. “Me, Jude and J.B. will go to Chloe’s.”
“I’m not a guard dog,” Beezle sniffed.
“You know, your job description includes the words ‘home guardian.’”
“That’s not guarding the home. That’s guarding some guy who knows two thousand ways to kill me with a toothpick.”
“Look, I want you to do what you do best,” I said.
“Make nachos?” Beezle said hopefully.
“No. I want you to badger and annoy Bryson until he gives up information on Sokolov’s plans for me.”
“That’s diabolical,” Jude said. “I thought you said you weren’t going to torture him.”
Beezle gave Jude a dirty look. “What makes you think he’ll crack?”
“I know you,” I said.
Beezle flexed his claws. “Fine. But I want compensation.”
“In the form of some trans-fat-laden pastry, no doubt,” I said as Beezle flew back inside.
“Where does Chloe live?” I asked J.B.
“Not far from here, actually,” he said. “Near Belmont and Paulina.”
“By the frozen custard place?” I asked.
“No, closer to the library,” he said, giving me a funny look.
“What? Beezle likes custard,” I said. “I can’t help it if my mental map of the city has all the sweets shops as landmarks.”
We decided to walk since Jude couldn’t fly and it wasn’
t worth the effort to carry him there. He changed into wolf form so that we would look like a couple walking their dog late at night.
“We should have a leash or something, though,” I said.
Jude growled at me.
“Okay, okay. I was just trying to complete the illusion. Stay close to us so nobody gives us a hard time.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” J.B. said. “Most normal people aren’t out and walking about on a night like this.”
Chloe’s apartment was about a ten- or fifteen-minute walk from mine. There was very little traffic on the street, and we saw no pedestrians from my house to hers. Most homes were darkened, their residents already tucked in bed for the night. I thought longingly of my own bed, but hard on the heels of that thought came the memory of Puck disguised as Gabriel.
Maybe I would sleep on the couch for a while and give Jude my room.
Chloe’s apartment was on Melrose in a white-siding two-flat not much different from my own. We walked up the porch and peered at the names on the mailboxes. Chloe was on the first floor, which was handy.
“I’ll go in through the wall and come out to let you two in,” I told Jude and J.B.
They nodded, and I laid my hand on the exterior door.
“I am the Hound of the Hunt, and no walls can bind me,” I said softly.
My hand slipped through the door like water, and the rest of me followed with it. I turned around and let the other two into the foyer, and then repeated the process on Chloe’s door.
A few moments later we were inside. I flipped on the light switch that was near the front door.
The place was trashed.
The apartment was an open studio with a small galley kitchen at the far end and a little corner reserved for a bathroom.
There were clothes everywhere, papers scattered willy-nilly and an open futon covered in tools and bits of metal. Her storage system seemed to consist of cardboard boxes and old milk crates, and they were used for everything from underwear to books. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes, and I think there was mold growing on the coffeemaker.
“Has someone been here before us, or does she live like this?” I said, horrified.
“You’ve never seen her cubicle, have you?” J.B. said. “This is actually somewhat organized for Chloe.”
Black Lament Page 18
