She grasped my hand firmly for a shake, and suddenly she went rigid. Sweat broke out all over her face as her skin blanched white as paper. I tried to pull my hand away so I could help her to a chair—I thought she was about to faint, or maybe having a heart attack—but she gripped my fingers tighter, so tight that the pressure hurt. Beezle dug his claws into my shoulders and hissed. His wings rose from his back like an angry cat’s fur.
“Ms. Greenwitch? Are you all right?”
Her eerie gray eyes were wide and staring and fixed on mine. When she spoke it was through clenched teeth, almost as if the words were pouring unwillingly from her mouth.
“You are the last. He is coming for you. In smoke and flame, he is coming for you. There is only death in his wake and the heavens will pour fire, and all that you are will be destroyed.” The pupils of her eyes widened, until there was only a thin ring of gray around the black, and she stumbled back, releasing my hand.
“Get away from here,” she spat. “And never return.”
I had never really been friends with Ms. Greenwitch, but I was a semi-regular client and I’d always thought we’d at least had a decent business relationship.
“What just happened?” I asked, confused beyond measure.
“Get
out
!” she screamed, and her face was drawn in lines of desperation. Her eyes went to the small window near the ceiling. All that was visible through the glass were the bars that protected the basement-level apartment and the cement gangway that ran along the side of the building.
I reached for her—to comfort or calm her, to try to figure out what the hell was going on—and she threw her hands forward, blasting me in the stomach with a punch of magic. The force sent me into the hallway, crashing into the wall. Beezle clung to my neck like a needle in a pin-cushion and I felt little rivulets of blood running from the places where his claws dug in. There was a strong scent of sage and thyme in the air as I struggled to my feet. It felt like a few new friends had been added to my very bruised ribs. I was getting really, really tired of getting beat up.
“Right,” I said, flicking my fingers in salute at her. It hurt just to do that. “Leaving now.”
“You stay away from here, Madeline Black,” she called after me, her voice shaking. “Keep your cursed blood out of my path.”
Cursed blood?
I mouthed to Beezle as we walked up the stairs. He shrugged. By the time I got to the front door, I was gasping for breath even though the flight of stairs wasn’t very long. I stumbled out onto the street and stood on the sidewalk for a moment, trying to remind my lungs that they liked oxygen and they should take all of it they could get.
“You need to take up running or something,” Beezle said. “And maybe lay off the desserts for a while.”
I smacked the side of his head, and the movement pulling on my ribs caused me to see stars. “I’m not out of breath because I’m fat, Beezle. I’m out of breath because I’ve gotten beaten up three times in the last couple of days.”
“Three?” he asked.
“Ms. Greenwitch, Antares and Ramuell. You know, the soul-sucking demon I have sworn to destroy because he killed my mother and Patrick.”
“I forgot about that,” Beezle said, with a little note of wonder in his voice. “It seems like a long time ago. But, you know, you probably could stand to lose a few ...”
“Beezle, if you finish that sentence, I will never buy popcorn again for the rest of my life.”
He snapped his jaws shut and crossed his arms, going into broody mode.
I walked very carefully down the sidewalk, intending to disappear into a nearby alley that ran underneath the El tracks and unobtrusively push out my wings. Ms. Greenwitch lived a few short blocks from the Western El stop, and a steady stream of late commuters flowed past as I shuffled my way down the street. Most of them appeared not to notice the gargoyle glaring from my shoulder, and the early-autumn darkness did a fair job of disguising my bruised face unless I passed directly beneath a streetlight.
A young woman and man, both of them in their late twenties, went by. They were dressed like young professionals, just off work. She carried the cardigan that matched her short-sleeved sweater over one arm, while he had a take-out bag in one hand and a leather messenger bag slung over the other shoulder. A bottle of wine protruded from the top of a slim paper bag that she had tucked inside her oversized tote. They looked tired but anticipatory, the way that people do when they’re almost home from work and they know they can put on their comfy socks and be with the one they love.
The two didn’t even notice Beezle and me as we passed. I felt a stab of jealousy, a tiny flutter in my stomach. I’d always accepted that it was my fate to be an Agent. I’d had no choice in the matter. I could do my duty kicking and screaming, but I would still have to do it all the same. And being alone, without a person with whom to share the wine and takeout, that was part of the package, too. There was no other way to be when you were an Agent. My mother had taught me that.
Of course, Mom had her little fling before you were born, didn’t she?
an insidious voice whispered in my head.
I tried not to think about it, because if I thought about it too closely, I’d realize that I was angry with her. Angry with her for loving a fallen angel. Angry with her for not telling me about my father, for not preparing me for the day when demons would come knocking at my door, for not helping me learn what to do with the magic that was bound up inside me.
So I wasn’t going to think about it. I squared my shoulders and marched into the alley, and Beezle shifted on his perch and muttered, “What’s the matter with you all of a sudden?”
“Nothing,” I snapped as we passed beneath a streetlight and into a patch of darkness. No one could see me once my wings emerged, but there was no point in freaking out the nice commuters by disappearing from sight in front of them.
I closed my eyes, thinking of home, and as my wings unfurled I caught a whiff of burnt cinnamon. My eyes flew open just as Beezle cried, “Maddy!” and I saw Ramuell’s gaping maw open before me. I felt his hot breath scald my face and I shot upward in an explosion of black feathers before he could close his mouth around my head.
The monster roared and stood to his full height, slashing at my legs with his scarlet claws as I flew up. I managed to tug away, flapping my wings desperately and blasting him in the face with a blue ball of nightfire. Ramuell released me, howling and clawing at his eyes. I zipped out of the alley and realized that my left pant leg had ripped open. The inside of my leg burned where the claws had rent my flesh and blood was running into my left boot, soaking my sock. The burning acid ran up my leg, traveling through my bloodstream, contaminating everywhere it touched.
I arrowed toward home with desperate speed, looking once over my shoulder to see if the creature was following me. There was no sign of it. It had disappeared as cleanly as if it had never been there.
“What the flaming hell was that all about, Beezle?” I shouted. “How did it just appear out of nowhere? How come people weren’t screaming and yelling at the sight of it? It had to get into the alley from somewhere, and it wasn’t there when we went in—I’m sure of that.”
Beezle said nothing, just clung to my neck even tighter. The burning acid in my leg had spread to my hips, and my stomach, and my chest. I slowed my speed as I saw the familiar rooftop of my house. My lungs felt tight and my vision blurred.
I aimed for the kitchen window and was off by a hairs-breadth, slamming my shoulder into the window frame and tumbling end over end to land flat on my back. The breath whooshed out of my body as from a deflating balloon. Beezle had released me before my swan dive and now he fluttered above my face.
“Maddy, Maddy, are you all right? Your leg doesn’t look so good,” he said, and I could hear the anxiety in his voice.
I tried to focus on his face, to tell him that I was all right, but everything looked like it was covered in thick fog. My lips and tongue and throat felt numb, and in my pain-filled haze it seemed somehow that my blood was moving more slowly, that my heartbeat was winding down like a clockwork toy.
“Maddy, say something,” Beezle pleaded. I could feel his little clawed hands on my cheeks as he pressed his beak against my nose. “Maddy, please get up. Please speak to me.”
You never say please,
I thought, but it was too much effort to say the words. It was hard to focus on Beezle’s cat eyes, so I let my eyelids drift closed.
“No, no, you wake up right now!” Beezle said, and I could feel his hands shaking me ineffectually. It seemed like his voice was at the other end of a long tunnel, pleading and angry at the same time. I wanted to pat him on the back but my hand wouldn’t move.
“What has happened here?” Another voice, silky and dangerous. Gabriel.
“Ramuell,” Beezle said. “He slashed her.”
Gabriel said nothing, but suddenly his hands were on my leg, pulling away the tatters of my jeans. I heard the sharp intake of his breath but it echoed oddly in my ears.
“You have done a very poor job, guardian,” he hissed, and I thought vaguely that he had never sounded as frightening as he did now. “I only hope that I am not too late.”
His arms went under my shoulders and knees, pulling me to his chest. I wanted to see his face, but I couldn’t open my eyes. I felt very far away, floating.
“And what of you, protector?” Beezle spat back. “Isn’t that why Azazel sent you here? To keep her safe?”
“Quiet,” he said, and I felt a strange warmth emanating from his hands. “The venom is everywhere now. I have only a little time and I need to concentrate.”
The warmth from his hands spread through his arms, and his chest, and it burned hotter and hotter. It was like standing too close to a furnace. The heat grew more intense, and it hurt. I wanted to scream but the noise wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Everywhere Gabriel touched me, the heat touched me, too, and it was like wildfire in my veins, burning away the acid.
And then his mouth was on me, too, at my throat, and my cheeks, and on my eyelids. And where his lips moved he left a trail of flames behind. He whispered against my mouth, “You have to live,” and then he was kissing me, and his kiss was like the heart of the sun. The fire careened in my veins, scorching, burning me clean and whole. I felt my legs again, and my arms. Then my lungs inhaled and exhaled, and my heart resumed its regular beat.
The heat subsided, and my eyes flew open. Gabriel’s mouth whispered across mine once more, and then he pulled away, and he smiled. His dark eyes were lit by starshine, and I felt I was falling again into the heart of the universe. Not by some spell of Gabriel’s, but by my own foolish wants and needs. He had kissed me to save me—this much I understood. But my heart, my very lonely heart, ached for what I had never known before.
Gabriel must have seen something in my own eyes. His smile faded and his expression flickered, unreadable, and then he carefully released me, placing me in a sitting position on the floor. His hand rested against the small of my back, making sure that I didn’t fall backward again.
I looked away from him. I didn’t want him to see how the little rejection had hurt me. My body felt remarkably whole, like it had the morning after Ramuell’s first attack. I suspected that if I looked at myself in the mirror, I would find all my cuts and bruises were gone. “Thank you,” I whispered, and my throat felt rusty and unused.
“You are welcome,” he said softly, and there was something in his voice that hadn’t been there before.
I whipped my head back to look at him, but whatever I thought I’d heard wasn’t there in his face.
Stupid, stupid, Maddy,
I thought.
Did you think he was going to fall madly in love with you after one kiss?
No, my life was no fairy tale. I was not a princess woken from sleep by her true love. I was an Agent, the daughter of a fallen angel, and he was . . . whatever he was, but certainly not normal or human.
I shook my head, glanced at my watch and remembered that I still had a duty to perform.
“Well, this has been fun, kids,” I said. “But I’ve got a pickup to get to shortly.”
I wobbled to my feet and grabbed the counter as my vision spun in circles.
Gabriel put his hand on my shoulder. “You are in no condition to go anywhere.”
I shrugged off his hand. “I just need a minute.”
“You look like you need more than a minute,” Beezle said.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I need a shower, and some food, and I’ll be fine.”
“I will go with you,” Gabriel said.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said. I wasn’t sure that I wanted him around. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of him. Still, he was the one who had kissed me in the first place, so maybe he wouldn’t object if I flirted a little in his direction.
And should you really be thinking about a supernatural romance right now?
I chided myself. I had to keep my head in the game or Ramuell was going to eat me alive—literally.
“I must confer with Lord Azazel,” Gabriel said. “Then, whatever activities that you have planned for the evening, my lady, I will be at your side.”