Black City

“I won’t leave you,” I repeated.

“Madeline, you do not love me. I know this. I felt it inside you when our powers merged.”

“I don’t have to love you to know that it’s wrong to leave you,” I said fiercely. “I only have a little power left, and so do you. But we can put what we have together. Maybe we won’t be able to heal your wing, but we can at least repair your back so that you can walk.”

“Why will you not leave me?” Nathaniel said.

“I can’t,” I said. Everything I’d ever felt for Nathaniel—the hate and the anger, the sometimes friendship, and, yes, the lust I’d barely admitted to myself—roiled inside me. It would be easier to leave him, to let him fulfill the destiny that he thought Lucifer had written for him. But I couldn’t. Nathaniel had saved my life more than once. And I didn’t know yet just what he was to me.

“Madeline,” he began again, but I stopped his mouth with a kiss.

This wasn’t the kiss of before, full of passion and power. This was a connection born of desperation, of a need that I did not fully understand. Into that place where our bodies joined, I poured the remnants of my magic. My power touched Nathaniel’s, and his light was so depleted, so fluttery and small. For the first time, I felt really afraid. I could feel him slipping away.

“Stay with me,” I said against his lips. “Stay with me.”

Tears were slipping down my cheeks, falling on his face, and it wasn’t just Nathaniel’s face but Gabriel’s, Gabriel’s frozen body in the snow. Nathaniel’s life wavered, a candle flame flickering in the draft.

“Stay with me,” I said again, and summoned all the strength, all the will, that I had remaining. I pushed that will inside Nathaniel, let my power twine around his.

The guttering flame grew brighter. It wasn’t the blazing heart that it had been before, but I knew at that moment I wouldn’t lose him.

Our magic flowed together through his body, found the broken vertebrae and reknit them—slowly, laboriously. There would be nothing left to mend his broken wing, but he would be able to walk and—I hoped—run.

After a long while I lifted my head and opened my eyes. Nathaniel studied me in silence.

“What?” I asked.

He looked contemplative. “I think I begin to understand you.”

“It doesn’t appear that understanding me has brought you any joy,” I said, pushing away from him and standing up. I offered my hand. “Do you think you can stand?”

Nathaniel ignored my hand. He sat up slowly before coming to his feet. His face was white as chalk.

Once he stood I could see the damage to his wing more clearly. It was sickening.

It appeared that Bryson had deliberately shot several times into the place where the root of the wing grew into Nathaniel’s back. Muscle and cartilage lay exposed, and the wing looked like it might snap off at any moment.

I reached toward his wing with my left hand, and that was when I noticed it.

“Nathaniel,” I said, and my voice was barely a whisper.

“What is it? They approach. We must move…” He trailed off as I held up my left hand and wiggled my fingers. All five of my fingers.

He grabbed my hand, inspecting it, then looked up at me in wonder. “How?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “This morning the last two were missing, just like they have been since Samiel cut them off. Now they’re back. There’s been so much other stuff going on I didn’t have time to notice the spontaneous regeneration of my digits.”

“Perhaps when we combined our powers the first time,” Nathaniel said speculatively. “The force was significantly greater than I expected. Perhaps this regrowth is a side effect.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe the fingers just grew back the way Lucifer always said they would.”

Nathaniel cocked his head to the side like a dog, like he was listening hard. “Unfortunately, we do not have time to contemplate this miracle. The vampires approach quickly.”

“You can’t run far with your wing like that. We’ve got to find some way to tape it up before we move any further.” I pointed at the glass doors of the convention center. “Let’s see if there’s a first aid kit somewhere in there.”

Nathaniel looked doubtful. “If we are trapped in there, we will be rats in a maze.”

“I’ve already survived a maze,” I said. “And we don’t really have a choice. If your wing breaks off, I doubt that it can be fixed. Do you want to be grounded for the rest of your life?”

I could tell that he wanted to argue further but the thought of being flightless halted him.

“Very well,” he said. “Let us move quickly. If we are fortunate, the vampires will be unable to distinguish our scent from that of other humans so recently near.”

As we hurried toward the doors something occurred to me. “But we don’t smell like humans.”

“I know,” Nathaniel said, and grabbed the handle of one of the doors. It opened easily. Whoever had left the building last hadn’t bothered to lock up.

I remembered the vampire I’d met in an alley the previous November, whose eyes had flared at the prospect of taking my blood because I was a descendant of Lucifer. I wondered how easy it would be for the vampires to find us.

We entered the cavernous hall. Stairs and escalators were before us. To our right was an auditorium and signs for bathrooms at the bottom of a short flight of steps. Advertisements for upcoming events open to the public were piled on a ledge directly to our right.