Black Night
Page 36

Antares just smiled at me, and moved closer. I called for my magic, but there was nothing there. This wasn’t the feeling that I had when I had overworked myself and used too much power at once. Despite the continuous stream of demons I hadn’t felt my magic growing weak.
This was different. It was like the magic just wasn’t inside me, like it had never been inside me. But that was impossible. Even without the new powers awakened by Lucifer’s sword, I still had my Agent magic.
Then I understood. The Maze had taken my power from me. J.B. had said that the Maze would find my worst nightmares, and being powerless in the face of Antares definitely qualified.
“Looking for something, sister?” Antares taunted, and it was then that I realized something else. This wasn’t the real Antares. This was a manifestation of the Maze drawn from my own mind.
“Yeah, your head on a plate,” I snapped back. Even when I was exhausted and injured, my mouth ran away from me.
“Come and get it, then,” Antares crooned, and crooked one clawed finger at me.
I rushed at him with my sword up and held in both hands. I don’t know what I was planning to do but Antares kicked my legs out from beneath me before I even got close. I landed hard on the back of my head and saw stars spinning above me.
Antares yanked Lucifer’s sword from my hand and tossed it away. It still lit the corridor, but its brightness dimmed a bit once it was away from me. I tried to stand and get away but Antares kicked me in the stomach.
It was like the first time I had met him, before I knew he was a demon, before I knew he was my brother or that I was Azazel’s daughter. He had beaten me within an inch of my life and the only thing that had saved me had been Gabriel’s magic.
But Gabriel wasn’t here now, and I was just as powerless as I had been the first time. I held my hands up, trying to protect myself from Antares’s vicious kicks, but I was so tired and hurt that all I could do was roll feebly away. He kicked me in the ribs again, and I coughed, tasting blood in my mouth.
He’s going to kill me, I thought.
I rolled to my stomach, tried to inch away in a crawl. Antares laughed behind me.
“What do you think of your beloved heir now, Father?” he asked.
I raised my head and saw through blurry eyes that two other figures stood farther down the corridor. I blinked to focus and saw the frowning faces of my mother and father.
“I should not have put so much stock in her,” Azazel replied. “I should have chosen you, my son.”
Antares laughed, grabbed me by the back of my shirt and turned me over. He punched me in the face and I heard my nose crack. Blood rushed out in a torrent.
“I’m sorry that I bore you such a weak daughter,” Katherine said to Azazel.
“Mom?” I said weakly. “Mom, help me.”
“Help you?” Katherine scoffed. “I should have never had you in the first place. If not for you, I could have spent a lifetime with Azazel.”
I knew it wasn’t my mother. My mother was dead. It was the Maze, trying to break my will. But it still hurt to hear something with my mother’s face and my mother’s voice say such things.
“No one is going to help you, little girl,” Antares said, and he held his claws above my throat for the strike.
“Help me,” I said, and I held out my hand.
Lucifer’s sword was in my palm before Antares could blink. I swung the blade without thinking and his head separated cleanly from his shoulders.
I fell to the ground as Antares’s grip loosened in death. I turned to my stomach, choking on my own blood. I coughed out the mess backing up in my throat and felt oxygen entering my brain again.
I lay on the floor, the cool stone of the Maze pressing against my swelling face. If every part of my body had hurt before, it felt three times as bad now. If Antares hadn’t broken any ribs, it would be a miracle.
There was a little pulse in my hand from the sword.
“I’m getting up,” I said.
It pulsed again when I didn’t move.
“I’m getting up,” I repeated, and this time I pushed myself up to my hands and knees. It was hard to breathe. Yup, I was pretty sure Antares had broken a rib.
A little match flame burst to life inside me again. The Maze had given me my magic back. Gee, thanks for nothing.
The sword pulsed again, this time more urgently.
“What now?” I said wearily, and used the wall to help me stand.
I was still there, eyes at half-mast, the sword furiously pulsing at me, when Ramuell entered the corridor.
16
I LAUGHED, AND I SOUNDED A LITTLE CRAZY. “OF course it would be you.”
Ramuell grinned at me. His teeth looked sharper than they had before I’d killed him.
“Not broken yet, little Agent?” Ramuell asked, and somehow I knew it was the voice of the Maze talking through him.
I stood away from the wall and held out my arms, showing the Maze my injuries. “Bruised but not broken.”
“I have defeated more powerful beings than you in my time,” the Maze said in Ramuell’s voice.
I narrowed my eyes. “And beings more powerful than you have underestimated me before.”
The Maze laughed, a long and sinister chuckle. “We shall see. I am not about to be laid low by a mere human.”
The sword pulsed, and the magic inside me surged up in answer to its call. I smiled at Ramuell, and echoed the taunt Antares had made at me.
“Come and get me, then,” I said.
Ramuell laughed again, and as he laughed the form of the nephilim slowly disappeared. “Oh, I will, little Agent. I will.”
I waited, braced, but Ramuell’s form didn’t reappear. “Just an errand boy, then.”
I started forward, trying not to think about how much every part of me howled in pain. I wished Gabriel had taught me how to heal myself the way the angels did. Of course, the Maze would probably have taken that ability from me anyway, so there was no point in wishing for it.
“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” I said. My mom used to say that. It was one of those phrases that made sense if you thought about it, but sounded kind of weird to say.
“Okay, now you’re rambling,” I said aloud.
The silence of the Maze was getting to me. I never realized how much I depended on the constant stream of chatter emitting from Beezle. As friendly a companion as the sword was, it definitely lacked something in the conversation department. It had been kind of a relief to exchange villain/hero wisecracks with Antares and Ramuell.
I walked for a long while, my feet dragging, my free arm wrapped around my broken rib. The sword emitted a steady glow of sunlight so that no surprises could pop out of the darkness. I turned right whenever I could and hoped that I was getting closer to the center, and Gabriel.
I didn’t hear him approach. All of a sudden I rounded a corner, and Nathaniel stood there, looking implacable. My magic winked out again, and I felt a surge of panic. All I had was the sword.
Then the sword betrayed me.
Nathaniel held out his hand and the sword struggled out of my grip and into his.
“I believe this belongs to me,” he said. “And so do you.”
He stalked toward me, and I froze, recognizing the look of intent on his face. I held out my hands, but I had no sword and no magic. This time he was relentless, and I really was powerless to stop him.
When he finished and stood up, I felt like something in my soul was broken forever.
“Get dressed,” he said.
I pulled on the ragged remains of my clothes, tears I couldn’t stop falling from my eyes. He reached for my wrists and clamped a pair of handcuffs over them.
“You belong to me now,” he said and pulled me to my feet.
Gabriel stood before us, a look of contempt in his eyes. He was disgusted by me, and I knew he had seen what Nathaniel had done.
“Gabriel,” I said, and reached toward him, my hands bound together. “Gabriel, help.”
He spit in my face, and then he turned and walked away. Amarantha waited for him and he entered her embrace willingly.
I howled in pain and in anguish, all the shattered pieces inside me splintering into shards. “Gabriel, Gabriel, no! Gabriel, DON’T LEAVE ME!”
Nathaniel jerked at my handcuffs, pulling me like an animal. “You are mine, now and forever.”
Gabriel disappeared around the corner. The light of the sword seemed to dim, and the light of my heart sputtered and died.
I heard a long, sinister chuckle. Ramuell stood where Nathaniel had been.
“Had enough yet, little Agent?”
Had enough. Yes, I’d had enough. Had enough of always being the helpless one, the powerless one. Had enough of being human in an alien world, had enough of seeing the only man I’d ever wanted walk away from me.
Gabriel wouldn’t walk away from you, a little voice in my head said.
He did. He always does.
No, he wouldn’t walk away if you needed him. He wouldn’t leave you to Nathaniel, to danger. He would never go to Amarantha.
He wouldn’t leave me. That’s what I told Beezle. He wouldn’t leave me.
“He wouldn’t leave me,” I said aloud, and I flexed my wrists. The handcuffs broke and fell away. The sword returned to my hand.
As I looked into Nathaniel’s surprised face, I swung the sword that the real Nathaniel had given me. I can’t say that I didn’t feel a ton of satisfaction in watching his head roll way down the corridor, even if it was only a puppet of the Maze. I felt my magic surge up inside me once more as I gazed into the eyes of the foe I had vanquished once before.
I had defeated Nathaniel. I had killed Ramuell. I had survived. I wasn’t powerless.
The Maze-Ramuell looked surprised as I stalked forward. The nephilim took a step backward away from me, and I knew then that the Maze would never beat me.
“You will not break me,” I said, my anger giving me strength, taking away the pain. “You will not break me, because I know that this is not real.”
“Not real?” the Maze said. “Are not your injuries real, your broken bones? Were you not defiled by Zerachiel’s son?”