I staggered, struggling for breath, and Nathaniel caught my shoulders, holding me upright.
“Gods above and below,” he whispered, and in his voice was a mixture of awe and fear. “It’s a Grimm.”
“A what?” I said, trying to find air in the omnipresent blackness. I shrugged out of his hold, standing as tall as I could with the air pressing down on me.
“A creature of Faerie. No one has seen a Grimm for hundreds of years. I thought they were legends.”
Faerie?
I thought, and then the tentacle came flying out of the cloak of darkness. It wrapped around Samiel’s ankle. He grunted as he fell to the ground, clawing at the porch. The creature yanked hard at its prey as I cried, “Samiel!”
I dropped the sword and dove for his hands. The tips of his fingers brushed mine. I saw his panicked face, and then he disappeared into the night.
“No!” I cried.
Nathaniel pulled me roughly to my feet, pressing the sword in my hand.
“Do not let go of your weapon,” he hissed. “Do you want to live?”
“Samiel,” I said. I couldn’t lose Samiel, too.
“Focus,” Nathaniel said. “If you want Samiel back, you must defeat this creature.”
If Samiel’s still alive,
I thought. He could be dead already.
The night seemed to be watching us, taking our measure. Nathaniel was right. I couldn’t afford to fall apart now. Nathaniel murmured something beside me, and a glowing ball of orange flame appeared. He threw it into the darkness, where it was swallowed whole. Nothing was illuminated by the course of the flame. The creature did not seem to have been harmed in any way. Nathaniel’s spell had been smothered by the dark.
I held the sword in front of me, my heart thundering. The tension stretched out unbearably as the night closed in around us. Nothing happened. My palms were slippery on the hilt of the sword, and cold sweat trickled in the small of my back.
I was afraid. No, I wasn’t afraid. I was terrified. It seemed like all my childhood fears of the dark, fears I had long forgotten, returned to me in a paralyzing rush.
I remembered lying in my bed, small and afraid, desperately needing to use the bathroom but being unable to move, unable to throw off the covers and walk down the hall because once I left the safety of my bed the Bad Man would be able to get me, and he waited just outside my door.
The Bad Man was a composite of horror-movie killers and urban legend maniacs whose escapades I’d overheard from other students at school. His face was burned. He walked with a limp. His left hand had been replaced by a hook that he used to catch you, snag you so that he could slice open your belly with the knife he held in his right hand.
I was always sure he waited for me, that I could hear the harsh anticipation in his breath, the thump-drag of his limping walk that preceded his arrival. I would lie in the darkness, eyes wide-open, weeping in silent terror, too scared to run to the bathroom because if I went into that hallway, I would die.
“Madeline,” Nathaniel whispered, and he put his hand on my shoulder.
I swung the sword at him without thinking, locked in the memory I’d long since buried. Only his preternatural speed kept him from losing his head, but I managed to nick him just below his left ear. I stared, panting with terror, as the blood welled and dripped onto the porch.
I noticed then that it was not completely dark, that I could see Nathaniel. I could see the blood that ran over his neck. It was as if he were lit faintly from within, and he was surrounded by a gently glowing halo of light.
I looked at my own hand. No halo, but I could barely make out the shape of my fingers in the light he cast. Must be a pureblood-angel thing. My own lineage was far too muddied by humans for me to have a halo.
“Madeline,” he repeated, stepping close to me. I automatically took a half step backward, the way I always did when he crowded into my space.
“The Grimm is a creature that thrives on fear,” he said in a low and urgent voice. “You must not give it any fuel. The more terrified you become, the more you open yourself to its power.”
I realized that while I was contemplating the mysteries of Nathaniel’s internal light, the pressing, suffocating fear had receded. Now that I was conscious of it again, it roared back.
My hands trembled. My heart pounded. I struggled through the fear that choked me.
“Can we fight it?” I asked Nathaniel.
“I do not know if we can fight it in the traditional sense.” His face was white and strained. I wondered briefly what Nathaniel feared, what bogeyman stalked his sleep.
“It took Samiel. I saw its arm.”
“An arm that may not exist anymore. The Grimm is nebulous, formless. It is fear that gives it shape.”
“Are you telling me that a marshmallow man is going to come stomping down the street?”
Nathaniel frowned at me. “I do not understand.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Again it seemed that while we spoke, the fear had rolled back. I took a firmer grip on my sword and went down the steps.
“Madeline, where are you going?” Nathaniel hissed.
“Nothing’s going to happen if we stand on the porch wringing our hands,” I said.
I could feel the dark blanketing me, trying to squeeze. I raised the sword in front of me with two hands and called out.
“I am
not
afraid of you. Give Samiel back and return to wherever you came from.”
Sweat dripped into my eyes and I swiped at it with my sleeve. It seemed the blackness all around became more complete, more smothering.
“I am not afraid of you,” I repeated, and I didn’t know if I was trying to convince the monster or myself.
LIAR.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It seemed like it was inside my ears, inside my blood and brain, permeating to the very heart of me, the small, secret place where my primal self was hidden.
And then I heard it.
Thump-drag. Thump-drag.
He loomed out of the dark, the Bad Man of my nightmares. I was paralyzed for a moment, and he slashed at me with his butcher’s blade. I stumbled backward at the last moment, the tip of the knife just catching the collar of my sweater, skimming over flesh and drawing blood.
“Madeline!” Nathaniel cried. I heard him coming down the steps, coming to help me.
NO,
said the darkness.
A tentacle flew out of the shadows again and seized Nathaniel. I heard his cry of rage, but I couldn’t focus on him. I could see only the Bad Man coming for me. He swung out his hook, trying to snag me with one hand while slashing with the other. His burned face was set in a contorted grimace of delight, his small blue eyes cruel under the hood of ruined flesh.
I swiped at his legs with the sword but he leapt aside with surprising agility for a man with a limp. I stumbled backward, caught my heel on the edge of the steps and fell to the ground. My sword flew from my hand.
He was on me in an instant, his knife coming for my throat. I caught his wrists as he fell on top of me, the stink of his blood-scented breath making me gag. He was strong, much stronger than an ordinary human, but so was I. The angelic blood that ran inside me made me just a little stronger, a littler faster. I held him off me, though I was blinded by tears, certain the fate I had always feared as a child had come for me.
For a second, for just the tiniest moment, I thought,
If he kills me, I can be with Gabriel.
At that thought, the child that was so small inside of me that it was barely a speck of light beat its little wings in distress.
And suddenly my fear was gone. It wasn’t bravado for the Grimm, but the true disappearance of terror.
“No,” I said, and fire ignited in my blood.
The place where I held the Bad Man’s wrists smoked. His eyes widened, uncertain. Then he screamed in pain as I pushed magic through my hands and into his skin.
He fell off me, rolling onto the sidewalk, his body lit from within by fire. Smoke poured in a dark cloud as he howled.
I stood on legs that trembled no more and faced the dark.
“I am not afraid of you.”
The night seemed to pause, to take my measure one last time. Then it released me.
ANOTHER TIME, AGENT.
And the cloak of darkness suddenly lifted.
3
NATHANIEL AND SAMIEL TUMBLED OUT OF THE SHADOWS, almost as if they had been thrown by gigantic tentacles.
“Samiel. Thank the Morningstar,” I said, rushing to him. I patted him all over, looking for injuries.
He shook his head, signed,
Nothing hurt but my pride.
“What did it do to you?” I asked.
“Simply held us immobile so that we could not assist you,” Nathaniel said. He seemed to be gathering the ragged remains of his dignity around him. It probably stung his pride to be dispatched so easily, and so soon after he’d declared he would protect me.
The regular sights and sounds of nighttime seeped back in. I heard cars driving too fast on Addison, the hydraulic lift and lower of a bus pulling to the curb, the jangle of a dog on a leash farther down the block.
I looked at the smoking husk of the Bad Man in alarm. “We’ve got to move that thing before somebody sees. I don’t even want to think about what J.B. will say if he intercepts a nine-one-one call about another dead body on my property.”
I’ll do it,
Samiel signed. He lifted the body by its shoulders, wrinkling his nose.
“I know. It smells horrible,” I said apologetically. My own nose was kind of overloaded with the stench and had reached a state of shock.
He looked at me questioningly and I understood what he was asking.
“The shed?” I said helplessly.
“Kind of an obvious place to hide a body,” Beezle said, flying down to my shoulder.
“I see you’ve cleaned up since dinner,” I replied. “Last time, we put the body in the basement and covered it with a tarp and you didn’t approve of that, either.”
“One of these days J.B. isn’t going to intercept a call in time and the cops are going to come sniffing around here,” Beezle said.
“You act like I’m a serial killer trying to hide evidence of my crimes. May I remind you that these monsters that show up at the door are trying to kill me and that I am just defending my life?”
“And is that what you plan on telling the nice detective before he drags you off to the sanitarium?”
“You’ve been watching too many old movies. Besides, do you really think that Lucifer is going to let me get captured by the human authorities?”
“Then why so concerned about the body?” Beezle asked.
“Can’t we just try to act normal for the sake of the neighbors? I already get enough weird looks as it is.”
“Perhaps the two of you would stop bickering long enough to address the problem at hand,” Nathaniel said loudly.
I gave him a bland stare. “This
is
how we address problems around here, angel-boy.”
He visibly bristled at the “angel-boy,” but his voice was clipped and controlled when he spoke.
“Then why is it neither of you have bothered to ask why the Grimm was here, and why it appeared to be targeting Madeline?”
“You said it’s a creature of Faerie, right? So I’ll just ask J.B. what he knows,” I said, shrugging.
“Duh,” Beezle added.
“And since I get targeted by something new and freaky every other day, it’s hardly notable.” I sighed. It was really sad that the appearance of a creature that had apparently not been seen for hundreds of years was just another footnote in my life.
“Are you going to call J.B. now?” Beezle asked as Samiel rejoined us.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to wake him up. He’s grumpy when he’s tired,” I said.
I wasn’t sure of the exact time, since I’d fallen asleep on the kitchen floor and woken up in the darkness, but the city had that settling-down feeling. It seemed most people were either in bed or behind locked doors for the night. Anyone who was still out at this time was either young, stupid or dangerous. I felt a trace of uneasiness, but put it down to the lingering effects of the Grimm’s influence. The tattoo on my right palm gave me a nudge, like the comforting touch of a dog’s muzzle.
I was abruptly aware of the deep cold and the fact that I was underdressed, as usual.
“Let’s go in,” I said.
Samiel and Beezle headed for the door. Nathaniel looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
I blew out a breath. I still had to deal with Nathaniel.
Samiel stopped at the top step and turned back to look at me expectantly.
“It’s all right; you guys go ahead,” I said, waving them inside.
Beezle landed on Samiel’s shoulder. “Get me inside before my wings fall off.”
“Let’s stand in the foyer,” I said to Nathaniel. “I’m cold.”
Samiel and Beezle disappeared into Samiel’s apartment. Nathaniel silently followed me into the small space between the outer door and the two inner apartment doors, which he could enter only because I’d invited him to do so.
A small safety light burned over the mailboxes built into the wall. In its glare I could see the dark circles under Nathaniel’s eyes, the blond stubble on his cheeks. The ends of his hair looked choppy, and his white button-down shirt, normally pristine, was actually dirty. All in all, he looked uncharacteristically raggedy.
But I guess that’s what happens when you help foment a rebellion against your highest lord. I imagined Nathaniel hadn’t had much time for manicures or trips to the dry cleaner’s while he was groveling to Lucifer.
“Listen,” I said to him without preamble. “You can’t stay here. You can’t sleep on the porch like a homeless person.”
“Lord Lucifer has charged me—” Nathaniel began, but I cut him off.
“Do we really have to have this conversation all over again?” I said, annoyed. “I
know
what Lucifer told you to do.
I’m
telling you that I don’t need a freaking bodyguard.”
“With all of the attacks you say you have suffered, would not it be wise to at least have someone around who can assist you?”
“No offense, but I can think of half a dozen people I’d rather have back me up,” I said frankly. “You haven’t exactly demonstrated your strength in a crisis situation.”