Black Lament
Page 26

I closed my eyes. “I’d say that I should have known better than to expect a faerie to help me out of the goodness of his heart.”
“Yes, you should have,” he said.
“Just who are you, anyway?” I asked. “You seem to have a lot of power in that court.”
The air shimmered for a moment, and Puck disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the room.
“I am the voice that dances on the wind,” he said.
“Very poetic.”
He turned in a circle and threw out a shower of gold sparks. When he stopped he looked like Oberon had before I’d diminished him.
“I am the beating heart of the earth,” he said.
He held out his hand and there was a puff of blue smoke that covered him before he reappeared as himself. He seemed more serious as he approached me; the merry light that always danced in his eyes was gone.
“I am older than this earth, older than the stars. I saw Titania and Oberon born. I have walked all the ways of the universe, the hidden paths known only to a few.”
He stopped in front of me, and put his hands on my shoulders. “And I have counted Lucifer as my enemy since time untold.”
“You are not a faerie,” I said, my heart trembling.
He shook his head. “No. I am not. And I find you, Madeline Black, very interesting.”
For just a moment, I thought I saw the shadow of wings behind him. Then he winked, and disappeared.
I sank onto the bed and stared at the jewel in my hand, the jewel that had purchased my safe passage and that now bound me to some ancient creature that despised Lucifer.
It glittered in the light of the ball of nightfire that floated aimlessly in the room. The glittering reminded me too much of Puck’s eyes, and I stuffed the jewel in the drawer of my bedside table.
I glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes past five in the evening. The darkness outside made it seem much later. I went out into the hall and down to the living room.
Samiel, Jude and Beezle looked like a guy cliché, all three of them ensconced on the couch. Samiel and Jude had their shoes off and their feet propped on my coffee table. Beezle sat in between them. On either side of my gargoyle was a plastic bowl filled with junk food. One bowl had popcorn, and the other had potato chips.
Beezle looked like he’d found heaven. I heard the sounds of gunfire coming from the TV.
“Aliens?” I asked.
“I love this movie,” Beezle said.
“Shh,” Jude said. “I’ve never seen it before.”
Samiel had looked up when I entered the room, and with his usual perception he realized something was going on.
What’s wrong?
“I hate to interrupt your party, but Puck’s just been to see me and I thought you’d want to know that there’s a hole in our security.”
“What?” Jude asked.
Beezle paused the movie with the remote. “Puck was here?”
I told them that Puck had appeared in my room because of the jewel. I didn’t mention that he’d appeared in the form of my dead husband and that he’d groped me.
I realized I was trembling all over. Puck had violated me. He had burrowed into my memory of Gabriel, had stolen the intimacy that we’d shared, an intimacy I’d never shared with anyone else.
Samiel was at my side in an instant, his arm around me. What did he do to you?
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell them. “Nothing,” I said through chattering teeth. “I’m just c-c-cold. Can you get me a blanket?”
Samiel looked like he wanted to push it, but decided not to. He led me toward a chair and covered me with a crocheted afghan.
I’ll get some tea, he said.
“We need to get rid of that jewel,” Jude said.
“I already tried that,” I said, still shaking. “I was told that it wouldn’t have much effect.”
“So we just have to accept that he can come and go as he pleases in this house?” Jude said angrily.
There was a knock at the back door, and I heard Samiel letting Nathaniel in the kitchen. Nathaniel entered the room, followed by Samiel carrying my tea.
“All you all right?” Nathaniel asked. He looked harried. “I felt the presence of something unnatural here, but I couldn’t get upstairs to you.”
“You felt Puck?” I asked, interested.
“You know, it’s funny,” Beezle said, shoving potato chips in his mouth. “We decided to watch the movie maybe fifteen minutes before you came out. We all had the same impulse simultaneously.”
And we didn’t even argue about what movie to watch, Samiel added.
“So Puck managed to neutralize all of you so that you couldn’t help me if I needed it,” I said. “You three didn’t seem to be aware of him at all. Nathaniel knew he was here but wasn’t able to help. How did he keep you downstairs?”
“Every time I tried to walk to the stairs, go out the front door or fly out a window, I felt some force turning me away,” Nathaniel said. “It was maddening.”
“I wonder why you could feel him and the others couldn’t,” I said thoughtfully. “You don’t have faerie in your blood, do you? I can usually feel Lucifer when he’s approaching.”
Nathaniel drew himself up haughtily. “I am the only child of two first-generation angels.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I wasn’t casting aspersions on your character. Just curious.”
Beezle looked curious, too, but he didn’t pursue it. No use getting Nathaniel annoyed over nothing.
“Puck as good as told me that if I tried to throw away the stone, it would come back to me,” I said. “But there has to be some way to prohibit him from entering without permission.”
Beezle tapped his chin. “He got around the threshold rule by giving you the jewel in the first place. That implied permission when you accepted it, even if you didn’t realize it.”
“Faeries love loopholes,” I muttered.
“And so do fallen angels,” Nathaniel said. “We cannot get rid of the jewel, and we cannot prevent Puck from entering the house, but we can bind the stone in such a way that it will imprison Puck when he enters.”
“I don’t want to imprison him,” I said, thinking of Puck’s speech about his origins. I wasn’t up to making any creature that old angry with me.
“Not imprison forever,” Nathaniel said. “He would be able to return easily to his own realm. But he would not be able to enter your home and walk about freely. He would be confined to one space unless you gave him express permission otherwise.”
I nodded. “Like a holding cell. I like it. How can we do it?”
“First decide where you would like to place the jewel,” Nathaniel said.
“As far from Madeline as possible,” Jude growled. “The basement. Or the shed outside.”
“That’s not going to work,” I said. “I want to know when he’s here. It should be someplace visible to anyone who comes through, like in this room.”
“You want Puck popping up when we’re in the middle of dinner?” Beezle asked.
“It’s better than him showing up in my bedroom when I’m asleep,” I said.
“Very well,” Nathaniel said. “Bring me the jewel and I will perform the binding.”
I started to stand, realized my legs were still shaky, and sat down again.
“It’s in the drawer of my bedside table,” I told Samiel.
Samiel disappeared for a few minutes, then reappeared, shaking his head.
It wasn’t there. Did you put it somewhere else?
“I just put it there a half hour ago,” I said. “Where did it go?”
I pushed to my feet, and Jude came to support me so I wouldn’t fall. “Let me look.”
Jude and I led the parade down the hall to my bedroom, where I was forced to suffer the indignity of everyone pawing through my belongings looking for the stone.
“It’s not here,” I said finally, sitting on the bed in defeat.
“Puck must have enspelled it to make sure that we couldn’t change the terms of the magic,” Nathaniel said.
“That sneaky little so-and-so,” I said.
“I guess he knows more about loopholes than you do,” Beezle said to Nathaniel.
Nathaniel glared at Beezle, but said nothing.
“Okay, so we can’t solve the Puck problem right now,” I said.
“What problem can we solve now?” Beezle asked. “We still don’t know where Azazel is or what he’s up to. You’ve really ticked off Titania, and the solution for that issue doesn’t seem to be in sight. You forgot your pickup this morning and lost the soul from yesterday. I think the only thing you can do right now is go into work and fill out forms that express your incompetence as an Agent.”
“Why is it that when you speak a feeling of hopelessness descends upon me?” I asked. “Has Chloe been around here lately?”
Samiel shook his head. I haven’t seen her since she left yesterday with the binder.
“Hopefully she’s working on deciphering it,” I said. “I’ll call J.B. and see if he knows anything.”
I dialed J.B. and waited while the phone rang. Everyone watched me.
“Don’t the rest of you have something to do?” I asked.
“No,” Beezle said. “Your life is our life.”
“Maddy,” J.B. said as he picked up the phone. He sounded worried. “I was just going to call you.”
“Why?” I said, a feeling of dread coming over me. “What’s after me now?”
“It’s not that,” J.B. said. “Something’s happened. I need you to meet me downtown.”
“Where?” I asked.
“One fifty South Wacker,” he said. “There’s a plaza between two big office buildings there. You’ll have to leave Jude at home. You need to come under a cloak so no one sees you.”