Black City (16 page)

“So you and Lucifer have some sibling rivalry issues,” I said. “What does that have to do with Nathaniel?”

“Some time ago I considered that it would be wise to have a person well placed in Lucifer’s court who was loyal to me.”

“I can see the wisdom of such a thing,” Nathaniel said. “But how does it benefit you when I did not know who you were or that I might be loyal to you?”

“When the time was correct I would have revealed myself, and your legacy, to you.”

“And you thought that I would immediately swear allegiance to you?” Nathaniel said skeptically.

“You would have been unable to do otherwise. The time would have been right,” Puck said.

“This plan seems like it has a lot of potential to backfire,” I said. There was something bugging me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “What, exactly, is ‘the right time’? You let him believe he was Zerachiel’s son for thousands of years.”

“When I was prepared to move against Lucifer,” Puck said vaguely.

Move against Lucifer,
I thought. Why was he being so circumspect? If he wanted a loyal son who would help him overthrow Lucifer, then why not raise that child as his own…And then everything slid into place.

“You weren’t saving your revelation so you could have a loyal person in Lucifer’s court,” I said. I could feel my anger rising again. “You were never going to tell Nathaniel in the first place. You were just going to flip the switch.”

Nathaniel looked from me to Puck. Puck’s expression was stony, revealing nothing.

“Madeline, what do you mean by ‘flip the switch’?” Nathaniel said.

“He’s made you a Manchurian candidate,” I said. “He was never going to tell you he was your father. When the time came, and you were close enough, he was going to unleash you on Lucifer. You’d never know why you killed him, but it wouldn’t matter because you’d probably die in the process anyway. I imagine that killing something as old as Lucifer would make a big explosion.”

Puck nodded slightly.

Nathaniel looked horrified. “You would set me on Lord Lucifer as an assassin?”

Puck wandered around the room, picking up my things, inspecting them, putting them down again. “Whatever my intentions, they have been undone by this woman.”

“This does not change the fact that your intentions sucked,” I said. “Did you even care about him at all? Or was he nothing but a means to an end to you?”

“How did you do it?” Puck asked curiously. “I would have said no power but mine could release his legacy.”

“I take it by your avoidance of my question that you did not give a care about Nathaniel at all.”

“I take it by your avoidance of
my
question that whatever occurred likely involved physical intimacy, because you possess an annoyingly human sense of modesty.”

“What happens now?” Nathaniel said, breaking into my verbal tennis match with Puck. I’d almost forgotten he was in the room. “My legacy has been revealed, at least partially. Am I in danger? When next I see Lord Lucifer, will I attempt to kill him?”

Puck gave Nathaniel a speculative look, like he was X-raying his son with his eyes. “The enchantment I laid on you seems to have changed. Really, Madeline. It is astounding that you managed to undo thousands of years of planning in a moment.”

“Will I attempt to kill Lucifer?” Nathaniel asked urgently.

Puck shook his head, but he seemed resigned instead of especially angry. I did not trust that. Puck was a mystery to me, like Lucifer, and Lucifer liked to play the long game. If Puck was giving up on Nathaniel as Lucifer’s killer, then he must be anticipating some other benefit from the situation.

“Guess you’ll have to murder your brother yourself,” I said.

“You don’t seem especially grieved by the prospect, considering we are related to you,” Puck said.

“If I’m lucky, the two of you will destroy each other and then I won’t have to deal with either of you anymore,” I said.

Puck gave a brief laugh. “If the two of us were gone, then Daharan and Alerian would remain. Don’t think that either of them would permit you any peace. Any descendant of Lucifer’s—or mine—would attract their attention.”

“So what about Nathaniel, then? Are you just going to leave him like this, half-baked? What if your enemies recognize him? Will he be able to defend himself?”

“How do you know I have enemies?” Puck said.

“You’re related to Lucifer. You have enemies.”

“The question is not if I will leave him like this, but will
you
?”

“Why is this on me? It’s your spell. It’s your deal.”

“Ah, but now that you have interfered in the magic, it’s
your
deal, as you say. I no longer have the power to release it.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Puck’s eyes twinkled. “I suspect that you need to do whatever you did in the first place, and just keep doing it until the spell is unleashed fully.”

10

SOMETHING FLASHED IN MY BRAIN—NATHANIEL RISING above me, naked and straining. I could feel my face turning red.

“There has to be another option,” I said.

Nathaniel looked at me. “Would it be so terrible?”

“This is not a conversation I want to have with your father looking on,” I said through gritted teeth.

“He is in danger as long as the spell is incomplete,” Puck said, and he looked like he was enjoying this immensely.

“You are an incredibly powerful being of old,” I said. “I find it just a bit absurd that you can’t wave your hand and fix this.”

“Even I have no control over the rules of magic,” Puck said. “You put the key in the lock. You must be the one to turn it.”

“Madeline,” Nathaniel said, and he approached me with his hands out.

He reached for me, pulled me close, put his face to my ear. I was sure Puck could hear anything we said, but it was nice that Nathaniel was willing to establish the fiction that we were alone.

As soon as he touched me I felt the thrumming anticipation that had haunted me ever since we’d first kissed. It may have been the compulsion of the spell demanding that I finish what I started, but it felt like a sickness, like a disease. I didn’t love Nathaniel like I’d loved Gabriel, but I wanted him more, and I hated that. I hated that I burned for him and there was no love between us.

“Madeline,” Nathaniel said, his voice low in my ear. “If you do this for me, it will not mean that you have to choose.”

“Nothing could make me choose before I was ready,” I said.

“And it does not mean that we must…culminate our relationship,” he said. “We need only to blend our powers together as we did before.”

I shook my head at him. “You know and I know that we wouldn’t be able to stop. And once we’re done, who knows what will happen? What about my baby?”

“Your baby would not be harmed,” Puck said loudly.

I looked around Nathaniel’s shoulder. “Excuse me, this is a conversation between Nathaniel and I. You could at least pretend that you can’t hear.”

Puck held up his hands in surrender and went into the living room. He sat on the couch and flipped through a celebrity gossip magazine that Beezle had picked up somewhere.

“I do not trust Puck, but I don’t believe that he would allow your child to come to harm,” Nathaniel said.

“Because my baby is a bargaining chip with Lucifer,” I said bitterly.

“Whatever the reason, your baby will be safe,” Nathaniel said. He lifted my chin so I would look him in the eye. “I would not harm you, either.”

If I didn’t do this, then he could come to harm. Everything in me was straining toward him. It was probably inevitable, but…

“I can’t do this now,” I said. “Not with an audience. Not with J.B.’s life in the balance.”

Nathaniel nodded, and he bent his head to mine. The kiss had a gentleness that I didn’t know he possessed.

“When we bring J.B. safely home, then,” he said. “We cannot wait much longer. And I would be a better ally to you against the vampires if my power was complete.”

I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but it was difficult not to feel like I was being boxed in. If I slept with Nathaniel, I didn’t want it to be for this reason. I wanted to choose, and like so many other things in my life I wasn’t allowed.

I moved away from Nathaniel. Puck gave the appearance of someone very absorbed by the latest celebrity breakup.

“Can you let everyone else in the house?” I said. “I want to get this show on the road.”

“As you wish, my niece,” Puck said.

He waved his hand, and the back door opened. I heard it slam against the kitchen wall. Beezle flew in, followed by Chloe.

Beezle looked furious. “What in the name of the Morningstar is going on here?”

“Where are Jude and Samiel?” I asked.

“They’re trying to break one of the windows from
outside,” Beezle said. “I told them not to bother, but they were getting a little crazed when they couldn’t open the door.”

“Will you go and get them, please?” I asked.

“Why? They’re probably hanging outside your bedroom window with a rock as we speak. And now that the spell is broken—”

As if on cue I heard the sound of glass shattering, and Jude’s triumphant cry.

“You’re going to fix that window,” I said to Puck. “I am not sleeping in a room with duct tape over the window frame in the middle of January.”

“Of course,” Puck said.

“You’re awfully compliant all of a sudden,” I said.

From the bedroom came the further sounds of glass falling to the floor, and the thump of Jude’s boots. Samiel grunted, and I imagine he was having a hard time squeezing his wings through the frame.

“You are going to have plenty to deal with when we arrive in Titania’s kingdom,” Puck said. “Our other issues can wait. If you survive.”

“I am not going to be defeated by Titania, so don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time to take up our
issues
later,” I said.

Jude and Samiel came panting into the room. Both of them looked like they were loaded for bear.

“The crisis is over,” Beezle announced.

His eyes darted between Nathaniel, Puck and me, and I could see him working things out. I gave him a look that warned him not to say anything.

Jude appeared slightly deflated by the news that he didn’t need to hit anything. “Are you all right?”

“That’s a complicated question,” I muttered. “Yes, I’m unharmed.”

What happened?
Samiel signed.

“Puck wanted a private word,” I said.

“Did he have to stop all of us from entering the apartment?” Jude growled. “We thought he was killing you in here.”

“My apologies, Judas,” Puck said.

Jude stiffened at the sound of his old name. He seemed to focus completely on Puck for the first time, his nostrils flared.

“I know you,” he said, and sniffed the air. “I know you of old.”

“Perhaps you do,” Puck said.

Great. Now Puck had some kind of connection to Jude, too. It was starting to feel less like chance that we had all come together. Some fate was pulling all of us—me, Nathaniel, Samiel, Jude, maybe even Beezle and Chloe—to these ancient ones, to Lucifer and Puck and the animosity that was older than the earth.

“Can we talk about this later?” I said to Jude. “I want to get J.B. and get home so that I can take down Therion.”

“If you will follow me,” Puck said, and made a portal in the air. “You must all hold tight to one another. We are going through the old ways, and if any of you lets go, you could be lost forever.”

Puck reached for my hand, and Nathaniel took the other. Jude reluctantly grabbed Nathaniel’s hand, and Samiel’s. Chloe made up the end of the chain.

“You guys look like one of those preschool walking buses,” Beezle said. “All you need are the little waist leashes.”

He flew toward me and stopped in midair. “Whoa. Where did you get the Catwoman pants?”

“You just noticed?” I said, my ears burning.

“Well, yeah, because there’s no pocket for me to nap in,” Beezle said, settling on my shoulder and digging in his claws.

“How about you try to stay awake during the rescue mission, just this once?” I said.

“Children,” Puck said, and he entered the portal, pulling me with him.

This portal wasn’t like the usual ones. Normally when I entered a portal I felt like I was being mashed in a blender. This was a pathway through the universe, a place that no human would ever see. Beneath our feet all the worlds looked like a necklace of jewels. We were draped in a veil of silence, and the stars spun around us.

Chloe and Jude both gasped. Chloe was the closest thing to a human that we had on our team. Even her work as an Agent had not prepared her for this.

“This is what’s behind the Door,” she whispered.

I felt a moment of panic. She now knew one of the secrets that the Agency tried to keep from the Agents. Would that put her on Sokolov’s hit list, too?

Then I realized that just associating with me was enough to put her life in danger. It didn’t really make me feel better.

“Hold tight,” Puck said, and we were descending.

A few moments later we stood in a lush garden, surrounded by flowers so rare and beautiful that they could not have existed in my world. The air was scented and heavy and shimmering with gold dust.

“We just got dropped into a scene from
Legend
,” Beezle said. “Where are the unicorns?”

Everyone had released hands except for Puck, who still determinedly clung to mine. I felt a current of magic strung between the two of us.

“What are you doing?” I said, tugging my hand.

“Giving you a boost. You will need it to find J.B.,” Puck said. “You are blood of my blood, and that makes a connection between us. My power can help strengthen yours.”

“Don’t try any funny business,” Jude growled.

“I would not think of it,” Puck said, his eyes dancing.

“You’re stronger than Titania is,” I said softly. “Why do you stay here, pretending to be her subordinate?”

Puck let go of my hand and touched the tip of my nose with his finger. “Just because you are blood of my blood does not mean you get to know everything.”