“ ‘My lady’?” I said. “Since when am I your lady?”
“You are the daughter of my lord; therefore, you are my lady. Forgive me for not addressing you so sooner.”
“Are you crazy?” I asked, totally unnerved by his sudden formality. I was no one’s boss. I could barely control my own small life. “Don’t even think about acting like you’re my servant.”
“When you are ready to leave, I will accompany you,” he said. “I will retire downstairs for the moment and confer with my lord.”
He headed out of the kitchen and down the short hallway. My shout stopped him at the door.
“Wait,” I said. “You need the keys. And what are you going to do in an empty apartment for the next half hour?”
A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “I do not need the keys, and the apartment is not empty.”
“It isn’t?” I was confused. I didn’t want him to leave, even if he was only going downstairs. I didn’t want this sudden feeling between us, either. Was this what normal people felt like?
“No, it isn’t empty,” he repeated. “After all, I do have a little magic of my own.”
9
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER I STEPPED OUT OF THE shower and wrapped a towel around my body. Gabriel had healed my injuries, but my jeans had been mutilated beyond repair and my skin had been covered in flakes of dried blood. Cleaning up had been deemed prudent.
As I walked into the bedroom I saw Beezle exactly where I’d expected him to be—perched on my dresser, arms crossed, opening and closing his wings in an annoyed little metronome. He narrowed his cat’s eyes at me as he took a deep breath to begin his tirade.
“Don’t even start with me, Beezle,” I said mildly as I pulled my underwear from the top drawer. Basic, boring black cotton bra and basic, boring black cotton underpants.
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Beezle snapped. “I see that look in your eye.”
I crossed to the closet and pulled out a black turtleneck sweater and jeans. Basic, boring. Black and blue. I looked critically at my wardrobe. Didn’t I have anything to wear that wasn’t completely drab?
“Madeline, are you listening to me?” Beezle asked.
“No,” I said absently, pulling on my clothes. Maybe after I got paid for my current writing assignment I could go out and buy a few new things. Maybe something red. Red would probably look nice with my dark hair and eyes.
Beezle launched himself from the dresser as I sat on the bed to pull on my boots, which looked mighty crummy after a couple of days of stomping in alleys and bleeding on the leather. As I finished tying the left lace Beezle came to a halt, hovering in front of my face.
“Now, you listen here, Madeline Black,” he said, stabbing a little claw in the direction of my nose. “Whatever ideas you have in your head about Gabriel, you had just better get them out right now!”
“And what makes you think I have any ‘ideas’ at all?” I shot back, annoyed. Gabriel may not be perfect. I may have had doubts about his motivations and his actions. But I was attracted to him. That much I could admit to myself. And I had been so alone for so long. I wasn’t about to let Beezle take that away from me just because he didn’t like the fact that Gabriel was fallen.
“I told you,” he said grimly. “I’ve seen that look in your eye.”
“I doubt that very much. I’ve never had anyone around to put that look in my eye.”
“I didn’t say I’d seen it in your eyes,” he said. “I remember Katherine mooning about just the same way that you are now. And may I humbly remind you that Katherine’s romance with Azazel was not the smartest thing she had ever done.”
I stared at him, stricken. “So what are you saying? I should never have been born?”
“No, no,” he backpedaled hastily, waving his arms. “Of course not. But it is very likely that her death was caused by her relationship with Azazel. I don’t want to see you fall into the same trap.”
I tried to put aside all the raw emotion that I had been carrying around the last couple of days—the lust, the longing, the anger, the hurt, the sense of betrayal by all and sundry. The flayed nerve that was the source of magic deep inside me. When I sifted through those things, looked at them critically, I could agree with Beezle. I was a mess right now. My life had changed too much and too quickly, and I hadn’t exactly responded like a mature adult. Maybe I wasn’t examining Gabriel close enough. Maybe I was letting myself get sucked in by his beauty, by my needs.
“My lady?” he called, knocking on the front door and opening it. “Are you ready to leave now?”
The sound of his voice made my body pull tight like an arrow about to be loosed.
“Maddy,” Beezle pleaded. “Please think about what you are doing.”
I heard Gabriel call me again and I patted Beezle on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Beezle. I promise to be careful.”
Careful. I would be careful. But I hadn’t promised to stay away.
At ten thirty-seven Gabriel and I stood on the corner of Clark and Belmont, watching the teeming masses of humanity rush to and fro. The buildings and the people reflected the constant state of flux that was any Chicago neighborhood. This particular corner had been something of a punk mecca—the Dunkin’ Donuts on the northwest corner of Clark had been affectionately known as the Pun-kin’ Donuts for years. Behind it stood the Alley, once a tiny purveyor of Gothic and punk fashion, now a venerable old Chicago institution that took up several of the buildings on Clark and Belmont. The Alley still hawked Doc Martens, plaid pants and black satin corsets, along with bondage gear, vibrators and just about any other accessory required for the young and alternative, who still flocked to this neighborhood in droves despite the increasing gentrification.
On the opposite corner, a Starbucks packed with the young and the fashionable bore a sign that proclaimed NOW OPEN 24 HOURS. The sidewalk was covered with scaffolding that wrapped around the corner, protecting pedestrians from falling debris as the building next door to the Starbucks was renovated.
Farther west on Belmont were an independent video store, a used bookstore, a Japanese goods emporium, several fashionable boutiques and a Middle Eastern take-out place called Sinbad’s that had the best falafel and hummus in the city, as far as I was concerned. East and closer to the lakefront was Boys Town on Halsted, with its strip of nightclubs and open-late eateries.
The proximity of this intersection to such a variety of businesses, restaurants and people, as well as the convenience of three bus lines and a major El stop, meant that Clark and Belmont never slept. Even at ten forty-five on a weeknight, there was still a snarl of traffic, buses trying to negotiate in and out of bus stops while car drivers cursed through their windows, cabbies zooming to pick up and drop off fares without any regard for pedestrians, cyclists or inanimate objects. People stepped off the sidewalk willy-nilly and crossed portions of the four-way intersection, not bothering to wait for the crossing signal.
Gabriel and I leaned against a storefront on the northeast corner and watched the crowd of neo-Goth and emo kids lurking in the small parking lot of the Dunkin’ Donuts, sharing cigarettes and coffee cups. Students and young professionals intent on their laptops could be seen through the window of the Starbucks.
“How will you know which is the man you are looking for?” Gabriel said, his eyes roaming the crowds of people. He was definitely taking his bodyguard duties seriously tonight. He gave off a take-one-step-closer-and-I-will-show-you-Armageddon vibe that had people veering around us on the sidewalks. I don’t think he was aware of what he did.
“Whenever I have to pick up a soul, I just know it’s them,” I said simply.
“There is nothing to signal you?” Gabriel asked.
“If you mean a rotating blue light and siren, or maybe a flashing arrow announcing, FRESH SOUL RIGHT HERE, then no,” I said, amused. “There is a kind of signal, I guess. It’s more like a knowing, like I sense that they are in my presence and then my whole being just kind of locks on them. I never really thought about it before. It’s always been instinctive.”
We fell silent for a few moments. Gabriel scanned the crowd for threats—although I could have told him that if Ramuell showed up, we would definitely notice—and I scanned the crowd for James Takahashi. My mind wandered a little as we waited, and then a thought occurred to me.
“Gabriel,” I said.
“Hmm?”
“When you say that you are consulting with my father, how is it you do that? Do you have some kind of special way of communicating with him?”
Gabriel frowned and looked at me. “What do you mean?”
“Well, how do you get in touch with him? Are you performing some kind of spell?”
He looked very amused as he pulled something out of his pocket and held it up to me. A tiny little silver cell phone.
“Uh, okay,” I said, a little embarrassed. “I guess your cell plan really has great network coverage if you can get a cell signal in the pit.”
“Lord Azazel lives in Minnesota,” Gabriel said absently, and returned to his bodyguarding.
“Minnesota?” I asked. My father lived less than seven hours away from me? “How can that be?”
“He lives in Minneapolis,” Gabriel clarified, and looked at me. I must have looked as stunned and confused as I felt. “Lucifer’s kingdom is metaphorical, not literal. The fallen are scattered throughout the world, maintaining different bases of power for him.”
“And my father lives in Minneapolis,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“And where does Lucifer live?”
“Los Angeles.”
I let out a laugh at that. “Of course he does.”
Just then I felt a little twinge in my consciousness and I turned away from Gabriel, my attention absorbed by the mass of people moving back and forth in front of me.
“What is it?” Gabriel asked, sensing the change in me.
“He’s here,” I said, and a second later I found him.
He looked about seventeen or eighteen, with dark, almond-shaped eyes and dyed white-blond hair that was cut short all over his head except for two long hanks in the front that brushed the tops of his cheekbones. He was tall and his scarecrow limbs were clad in what I thought of as mall punk—red plaid pants covered in zippers, baggy black T-shirt, surplus combat boots. There was a messenger bag imprinted with a skull and crossbones slung over his shoulder and he read from an obviously well-used copy of Dostoevsky’s
The Idiot
as he walked. A half-burnt cigarette dangled from his bottom lip.
I could see what was going to happen. Takahashi walked and read, heading south on Clark only a few steps from the intersection. On the west side of Belmont, a few feet from where Gabriel and I stood, a cabbie dropped off a fare and prepared to pull through the intersection just as the light flashed yellow for a second or two before changing to red.
The cabbie, being from Chicago, was not about to let a little thing like a red light impede his forward motion. Takahashi glanced up from his book long enough to verify that the crossing signal showed WALK, and then went back to reading as he stepped into the street. I felt the wings pushing out of my back. If anyone had looked at me at that moment, they would have seen me wink out of sight, almost as if I had never been there.
Time slowed down. Takahashi took a drag from his cigarette. The cabbie accelerated through the intersection, jabbering into a cell phone headset as he went. My feet left the ground. Beside me, I felt Gabriel rise up as well. I glanced at him briefly and noticed that his wings looked a lot like mine. I returned my gaze to the happenings below as we floated over the street and waited.
The taxi slammed into the boy with a screech of brakes. Dostoevsky went flying in a burst of pages. I saw Takahashi’s left leg crushed beneath the front passenger-side wheel. The bumper slammed into his head. It was almost as if he’d been sucked underneath the car rather than hit by it, like the car was vacuuming him off the street.
Blood pooled. Bone crunched. People screamed. The cabbie sat in the taxi, eyes bulging, hands shaking. Someone ran to check Takahashi’s pulse. At least fifteen people called 911, and another fifteen started telling whomever they had been chatting with on their cells that they had just seen a guy get smashed by a cab right in front of them.
I waited, Gabriel hovering patiently beside me. In a moment, Takahashi exhaled for the last time. His soul drifted out, looking confused as he saw his own crushed body. I lowered down to him until we were at eye level. His eyes widened when he saw me. After a moment he looked resigned.
“Are you here for me?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said simply, and held out my hand.
He reached forward to place his hand in my own, and that was when everything went horribly wrong.
A woman screamed, a piercing, unending wail, and all three of us turned in the direction of the noise. Ramuell stood in front of the Starbucks, looking comically out of place next to the familiar logo. Next to him a young woman wearing a thick cabled sweater and carrying a latte had her mouth open in a wide
O
as she screamed. It was the first time I’d seen the nephilim in anything but complete shadow. Under the harsh glare of the streetlamp he looked like a 3-D nightmare.