Black Night
Page 21

“Madeline?” he asked again, and his eyes searched for some sign of me. Disappointment crept over his face.
“I’m here, Gabriel,” I said. “I’m here. I’m coming for you.”
But he dropped his head to his knees. He didn’t see me. He didn’t hear me. I felt a moment of despair. What good was I to him, or to anybody? How had I let this happen in the first place?
Then I realized I could at least try to find out where he was. I drifted upward through the pit. There was a long channel above the hole where Gabriel was held. The channel was far too narrow for Gabriel to fly through, and too smooth to climb. His captors must have found some way to suppress his magic as well, or no prison would be enough to keep him there.
I wondered if they’d simply dropped him into the hole or if they had cared enough about broken bones to lower him gently. Judging from the whip marks on his back, it was probably the former.
I floated through the open hole at the top of the pit and emerged in a cave. There was no sign of Gabriel’s captors, no sign of life of any kind. There was only black volcanic rock and gray sand. I couldn’t smell anything or feel heat or cold, so from my point of view it was a basically a non-descript cave. It could have been anywhere in the world.
I let myself drift along, toes just brushing the fine sand that covered the ground everywhere I looked. After a few minutes I came to the end of the cave. The tunnel turned abruptly and opened out over the edge of a cliff. I went right up to the edge and looked down.
Even though I was some kind of ghost or floating aspect here, I still had a moment of vertigo. The cliff dropped away to a sheer face that fell maybe two hundred feet to a thin creek bed, long empty of water. There was a wide expanse of open plain on the other side of the creek, gray sand and gray sky and clouds exploding with lightning.
I had a foreboding feeling as I looked around this dead place, gray as far as the eye could see. I looked and looked and finally found what I expected.
Far in the distance I could see the clawed outline of a tree, white as bone, scraping its branches like talons across the sky.
“The Forbidden Lands,” I said. It was a place that I had never wanted to see again, the place where Lucifer and the Grigori had imprisoned the nephilim. It was the place where Ramuell had torn out my heart, the place where I had died once—for a little while.
Who had brought Gabriel here and dropped him into that oubliette? If they wanted him for some purpose—as a ransom or a slave—then why leave him here to be forgotten?
Suddenly there was a movement on the plain below. From the right of the cliff that I stood upon came a single individual. At this distance I could detect only the gleam of golden hair and of white wings, marking him of angelic descent.
From the left came a small group, knotted tightly together and moving almost as one body except for the leader. He strode ahead to meet the individual coming from the other direction. All I could see of the leader was that he was tall and horned—that plus the multicolored glob of beings behind him told me that he was a demon.
I needed to get closer and find out who these characters were and if they had anything to do with Gabriel’s kidnapping. I knew that my physical body was not here, and that even if it were here, I could fly. But it still took everything I had to step off the edge of the cliff.
I fell slowly, floating downward like a dandelion seed drifting on the breeze. It seemed to take an eternity before I met the ground. I landed softly in the sand, and my bare feet made no impression. It was only then that I realized I wore nothing but my only white nightgown—a favorite of Gabriel’s—and it wasn’t even what I had actually put on to sleep in. I felt suddenly vulnerable, that if I presented myself like this in the sight of those demons, they would fall upon me and devour me.
But that was absurd. Gabriel couldn’t see me. I was dreaming, or having a vision, but I wasn’t really here. This might be my only chance to find out who took Gabriel, and why, and to try to figure out how to get him back.
I had landed several feet behind the angel. His wings were up and outspread and obscured his face from the angle at which I stood. I approached cautiously, hugging the cliff face even though one of the demon entourage would surely raise a cry if I could be seen.
The demon in charge, the one speaking with the angel, looked a lot like my half brother. He so resembled Antares that I had to do a double take to make sure that it wasn’t him. The leader was about nine feet tall, with red skin, oversized bat wings and gleaming black horns jutting from the top of his forehead. He had a strange sigil, almost like an ampersand with the bottom curl cut off, branded on his face.
The sight of that sigil gave me a flash of memory. Antares tossing me down the stairs, telling me that he would be honored above all others when he brought my heart to his master. He showed me the same sigil on his hand, the sign of Focalor. Focalor was one of Azazel’s enemies, but he could not openly declare war against Azazel because that would be tantamount to declaring open war on Lucifer. Was this creature Focalor, or another one of his toadies like Antares?
I crept carefully toward the angel and the demon, who were deep in conversation, in order to hear what they said. Unfortunately, I was doomed to disappointment. They seemed to be speaking some kind of language that involved a lot of grunting and gesturing. The demon was annoyed with the angel, and as they talked his face grew thunderous. The band of demons behind him moved restlessly as their leader became more fractious. I still could not see the face of the angel, but his body language was unyielding. There would obviously be no negotiations with him.
I studied the demons, looking for a familiar face. The only other demons that I had ever seen had been with Antares, and if I saw one of them in this group, then at least I would have some kind of lead to follow. Tracking down Antares wasn’t too hard. He showed up at my house every chance he got.
I moved a little closer, hoping to at least see the face of the angel dealing with a demon as if it were his equal. This was a big no-no in the courts of the fallen. There was a pretty strict caste system there, with the Grigori—the first fallen—at the top, then other angels, then demons, who acted almost as servants to the castes above.
Certain crossbreeds were tolerated at higher levels—like me, because I was pretty much descended from fallen royalty—but others like Gabriel ranked below the lowest demons. Within the general groups there were even stricter breakdowns of hierarchy, which had a lot to do with how much power you had, who was in your entourage, who your parents were, or all of the above. It was pretty extraordinary to see an angel treating a demon this way.
I drifted over the sand as the discussion grew more animated. Because of the position of the party I had to approach the angel almost directly from behind. As I drew within a few feet of him, he suddenly stopped speaking and turned around.
His eyes widened, green eyes filled with malice.
Samiel.
It was as if he saw me floating there when no one else could. I heard a voice in my head say, “Enemy.”
He reached for me, his fist uncurling to tear out my heart, just like his father had done.
“No,” I whispered, and my body filled with terror. How could he see me? How did he know that I was there?
“Madeline!”
Gabriel’s voice. Gabriel. I had to get away. I shot upward, away from Samiel’s clawing fingers, up the side of the cliff, back into the cave. Samiel came right behind me, a relentless machine, wanting only one thing—vengeance for the deaths of his mother and father.
I turned around and around in the cave, realizing I’d fallen into a trap. Now I would be torn to pieces by demons.
“Maddy!”
Samiel bore down on me, his face unyielding, his eyes furious.
“Enemy.”
“Maddy!” A gravelly voice, one that I knew very well.
“Madeline!” Gabriel calling from the oubliette.
“Enemy.”
Enemy, enemy, enemy.
“Maddy!” Beezle shouted, and he sounded so angry with me, and I woke up.
Beezle crouched at my shoulder, looking scared and annoyed. I shifted onto my elbows and realized the bedsheets were soaked in sweat.
“You were having a nightmare. It was keeping me awake,” Beezle said. “What were you dreaming about? You kept screaming ‘enemy’ over and over again.”
I sat up farther and rubbed my face with my hands. “It wasn’t a dream, I don’t think.”
Beezle held up his hands. “Oh, no. No more visions. Remember the last time you had visions? You were possessed by Evangeline and tricked into the nephilims’ prison.”
“Well, that turned out okay,” I said, annoyed. “I did defeat Ramuell in the end.”
“And lost some of your humanity in the process,” Beezle reminded me.
I put my hand over my chest to the place where my heartstone pulsed in place of my human heart. It felt warm there, like the sun. Samiel had wanted to tear out my heart, just like Ramuell had. I shuddered and threw the blankets off, nearly tossing Beezle across the room in the process. He scowled at me as he fluttered above the bed.
“All right, let’s hear it,” Beezle said. “Tell me about this latest complication.”
I told Beezle about the vision—Gabriel in the pit, Samiel and the demon. He looked troubled.
“It sounds like they might be arranging a trade for Gabriel,” Beezle said.
“That’s what I thought, too. The only question is, which of them took him in the first place and which of them wants him badly enough to trade?”
“Actually, there’s a more serious problem here. If a representative of Focalor is dealing for Gabriel, that’s tantamount to declaring war on Azazel’s court. Gabriel is Azazel’s servant and he’s your bodyguard. Even though he’s a half-breed, everyone in the courts knows of his importance to Azazel. And if Focalor is making such a bold move, that means he is prepared for the consequences.”
I stared at Beezle. “The whole power structure that Lucifer has built could collapse.”
Beezle nodded. “If Focalor attacks Azazel’s court openly, then other courts with grievances will see it as an opportunity to attack their enemies as well. The whole of Lucifer’s kingdom could fall to pieces in a few days. This is why Lucifer and the Grigori keep such a ruthless hold on the courts.”