“Beezle!” I shouted. He flew in through the bedroom door so quickly he must have been hovering in the kitchen just outside.
“Maddy,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I said, surprised to hear myself say it. I felt . . . rested, more rested than I had felt in a long time. “But how did I get here? Who brought me home?”
Beezle looked surprised. “No one brought you home. You brought yourself home.”
“No, I didn’t. I remember someone picking me up and carrying me. I could hear you arguing with him.”
“With who?”
“Whoever carried me home, Beezle! Why are you acting like you don’t remember this?”
“Well,” he said slowly. “Maybe because it didn’t happen?”
“Who were you talking to, then?”
He looked affronted. “I don’t talk to any humans except you. And ...”
“Don’t you think I’d remember coming home, taking a shower, braiding my hair? I never braid my hair.”
“You did last night. I mean, you did seem pretty out of it, but you told me that you were okay to walk home.”
“You’re telling me that I got up and walked home and did all of those things?”
“Yes.”
“Why are my hands bandaged?”
“Burns,” Beezle said, and he frowned at my palms as if they offended him.
“From what?”
“That ball of fire you conjured up. The burns were there when we got home. You put some cream on them and wrapped them up.”
I didn’t remember doing any of it, and I was certain I’d heard another voice. My head started to ache as I strained to remember.
“How did you do that, by the way?” Beezle asked, and his voice sounded funny.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Call up nightfire.”
I stared at him. “Nightfire? What the hell is that?”
“Funny you should mention hell,” Beezle muttered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Beezle said, shaking his head. “Anyway, how did you call it?”
My brain felt a little fuzzy around the edges. “I have no freaking clue. I didn’t even know that Agents could call nightfire.”
Strangely, Beezle looked relieved by this pronouncement. “So what happened, then?”
“I don’t know. That thing was talking about Mom . . . talking about eating her as if she were an hors d’oeuvre. And I just got so angry. All of a sudden I felt all this power build up inside and it hurt me to keep it there, so I let it go. Wait,” I said, remembering why I had been below that overpass in the first place. “Wait. What happened to the monster? To Patrick?”
“The monster . . . ran away,” Beezle said. There was something about the way he said it that made me think he wasn’t telling me the whole truth. But before I could pursue that line of inquiry, he spoke again. “Patrick was dead, Maddy. He was dead before we even got there.”
I slumped back onto the pillow and felt tears burn the backs of my eyes. I swiped at my face with an impatient hand. “Did I just leave him? Did I leave his body there?”
“I don’t think there was much of his body left.”
I closed my eyes in pain. “Very tactful.”
“I’m sorry,” he growled, and it looked like he meant it. “But you were out of it. You couldn’t have helped him even if you’d tried.”
“He was my friend, Beezle. Pretty much my only friend. I can’t believe I would just walk away from him, no matter how ‘out of it’ I was. And why was that thing after him in the first place? It doesn’t make any sense unless ...” Realization dawned. “Unless it was after me, and it used Patrick to get me there. Which would mean he died for me, because of me.”
Beezle looked at me sternly. “I know what you’re thinking, and you just get it out of your head right now. Your mother charged me with your protection and you are
not
going haring off to find Patrick’s killer.”
“That thing didn’t only kill Patrick. It killed my mother. And I’ve spent a lot of years wondering what happened to her, and why no Agent ever came for her soul.”
“How do you know that no Agent came for her?” Beezle asked, watching me carefully.
“I checked the Hall of Records. Every dead soul is recorded there, and so is their choice. My mother’s soul isn’t there. No Agent came for her, and if she wandered the Earth, she would have come to me. I know she would have.”
Beezle looked at me with something like pity in his eyes.
“Don’t lecture me,” I said, holding up a warning hand. “You loved her, too. It’s the only reason you stayed to watch over me.”
He looked away and grumbled something.
“What?”
“I said, Katherine Black was special.”
“Yes, she was. And I’m going to find the thing that killed her and Patrick. And when I do, I hope I can call up that nightfire again. Because when I find it, I’m going to make sure it dies screaming.”
4
I DRESSED, PULLING ON A PAIR OF FADED BLUE JEANS, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and a pair of ankle-high black leather boots with chunky treads. My wardrobe mostly consists of jeans, cords, black tops and black shoes. I don’t want to have to think about coordinating anything, so it’s best if all of my clothes are already coordinated when they come out of the closet. Besides, what color is more appropriate for an Agent of death than black?
I had a soul to pick up at ten forty-three P.M. tomorrow—James Takahashi at the corner of Clark and Belmont. Other than that, I had the next couple of days completely free. Free except for a few niggling little details—like running a credit and background check on Gabriel Angeloscuro, finishing up the recipes for the article on pears that I was writing for a magazine that featured low-fat cooking, checking the Hall of Records for the whereabouts of Patrick’s soul, and finding my mother’s killer. Just an ordinary day’s work.
I contacted Charlie McGivney, the P.I. who’d agreed to handle the background checks for me. I read him Gabriel’s information from the apartment application. The application was written in a freakishly neat print, almost like a typewriter. Charlie said he’d get back to me in a day or so. One task down.
I yanked on my black peacoat and called to Beezle, who was doing his broody thing on the mantelpiece again. “I’m going to see J.B.”
“What for?” he grumbled.
“So I can find out what happened to Patrick,” I said. “I need a pass from him to get into the Hall of Records.”
“But you hate J.B., and he hates you, so why should he do you a favor?”
“I don’t
hate
him.”
“Yes, you do,” Beezle insisted.
“No, I don’t. I just find him to be a little smug. And condescending. And annoying.”
“And your boss.”
“That, too,” I said as I stepped to the side window and thought about going to the Main Office. As I pictured the building, my wings sprouted from my back.
I wasn’t really sure how I would convince J.B. to give me a pass to the Hall. We hadn’t exactly ended our conversation on a high note the day before. And in addition to all of my other worries, I was still bothered by the fact that he seemed to have at least one Agent under surveillance. Something else to add to my to-do list.
Lizzie frowned at me when I walked into J.B.’s office. “Do you have an appointment, Maddy?”
“No, but I’m sure that he will relish the opportunity to shout at me for no apparent reason.”
“Maddy,” she chided. Lizzie was maybe ten years older than me, and she tended to use every one of those years as an excuse to act vaguely maternal. “You shouldn’t talk that way about Mr. Bennett. He is your supervisor.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. After all, I wasn’t there to give Lizzie a hard time. “Is he in?”
“I’m sure he can see you,” she said, and announced my presence over the intercom.
“Send her in,” J.B. barked.
I tried to put on my nice face. I needed something from J.B., and I wasn’t going to get it from him by giving him an attitude. But then he ruined everything by acting like J.B.
“I noticed that you haven’t filed your paperwork for the Luccardi incident yet,” he said before I had even finished shutting his office door.
Paperwork,
I thought.
I’ll take that paperwork and shove it up your . . .
I took a deep breath to clear my head. No use letting him make me angry.
“Patrick is dead, J.B., and I need a pass to get into the Hall of Records.” I hoped that I looked contrite and harmless instead of annoyed and murderous, which was how I generally felt in J.B.’s presence.
“You know you don’t have the authorization to go poking around in there. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Patrick? You know, Patrick Walker? My friend, one of the Agents under your supervision? He was murdered by some big scary thing last night at Ravenswood and Grace. I want to find out what choice he made. If he’s wandering the Earth, I need to talk to him about the monster that killed him.”
He stared at me dumbly. “Are you taking drugs, Black?”
“What?”
“Walker’s not dead.”
“Yeah, he is. And you should know about this, because an Agent would have gone to collect his soul. And there should have been the activation of the next closest relative in his bloodline.”
“But none of that happened, Black. I don’t have any paperwork here; ergo, Walker is not dead.” He said this with the ringing finality of a true believer at a tent revival.
“J.B.,” I said, striving to put a note of patience in my voice when I wanted to shake his complacent self silly, “I saw his body. I saw said big fucking scary thing that killed him. It almost killed me. And I want to know what happened to his soul.”
J.B. gaped at me. “Did you have a bad dream last night or something?”
“No!” I shouted, getting frustrated. “It happened, J.B. Just the way I told you. And this monster—whatever it is—it was stalking Patrick. He knew it was coming after him. He called me to ask for help. And . . . J.B., I’m pretty sure that this is the thing that killed my mother.”
I’d never seen J.B. look uncertain before. It softened his face, loosened the tension creases around his eyes. “Black, your mother . . . That’s ...”
“Just check, won’t you? You can find out in a few minutes if Patrick’s dead or not,” I pleaded.
He hesitated, but something in my face or voice must have told him that I wouldn’t leave until he checked. He picked up the phone on his desk and dialed out.
“Hall of Records,” he said. He watched me with a strange look in his eye. I couldn’t decide if he felt sorry for me or he thought I’d lost my marbles. Probably a little of both.
“This is J. B. Bennett, Area Fourteen supervisor. Can you verify the death of one Patrick Walker in Chicago last night?”
I leaned forward in my chair, gripping the seat with my hands. J.B.’s face changed as he listened to the person on the other end of the line. In about three seconds he looked thunderous, an expression I was very familiar with.
“What the hell do you mean he died last night? He was an Agent, for chrissakes! I should have been notified so I could activate a new one! I want to talk to your supervisor, young lady.”
“J.B.,” I said, flapping my hands to get his attention. “We don’t have time for this.”
He held up a finger to shush me. “Well, you tell him to contact me as soon as he’s done.”
He slammed down the phone. “Just what in the hell happened last night? That little ditz in the Hall of Records told me that Patrick’s file shows his death but not his choice. I don’t know who they’re hiring down there these days. Faeries, probably. Flaky little things. Lord knows they’re better than the gnomes, but flash something shiny in front of them and they lose all sense of focus ...”
J.B. continued to rant while I absorbed his words. Patrick’s file showed his death but not his choice. My mother’s file had shown her death but not her choice. That monster . . . Just what had it done to their souls?
“J.B.,” I said. “Focus. We have a big problem here.”
“Yes, we do. Someone needs to take those Record Keepers in hand.”
“Fuck the records.”
He looked astonished, like I had just sworn in church. J.B. loves nothing if not order. Then he recalled that he was supposed to be the boss.
“Listen, Black, your attitude is way out of line ...”
“I’m trying to tell you about a killer monster and you’re worried about my attitude. Why do you always worry about the stuff that doesn’t matter?”
“What matters more than the official reprimand that I’m going to write up on you as soon as you leave this office?” he asked, his eyes as cold as ice.
“Patrick’s file shows his death but not his choice.”
“So? Some idiot in Records didn’t enter the information.”