Black Howl

“This is the place where the demons’ trail ran out when I followed them earlier,” Jude said. “So if that’s what you’ve brought us here for, we can just turn around.”

Nathaniel didn’t even deign to answer Jude. He simply crossed to the bottom of the rock formation and beckoned to me.

“If you would look here,” he said, and pointed to a spot about four feet above the ground.

I stepped closer and crouched down, peering into the shadowed notch where Nathaniel had pointed.

“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Beezle asked belligerently.

“Quiet,” I said, leaning forward.

I brushed away some dirt and frost with the three remaining fingers of my left hand. Samiel had cut off the ring and pinkie fingers before we’d come to an understanding. Lucifer had told me the missing digits would grow back but so far I didn’t detect anything exciting happening on that front.

“Look.” I pointed to the same sigil I’d seen earlier, a circle with a small V on top. “I found this in the clearing where the pack was attacked,” I said. “It was inside the footprint of a demon.”

“I’ve never seen a demon’s mark like that before,” Beezle said.

That was saying something. Beezle is pretty much an encyclopedia of things that go bump in the night, and he knows the arcana of the fallen like he knows all the flavors at Dunkin’ Donuts. If he didn’t recognize the mark, then it was something new. And my recent experience with the fallen had taught me that anything new was something to dread.

Gabriel leaned over my shoulder and I smelled a whiff of cinnamon, the scent that I associated with an angelic being using their powers.

“It is a holding place for a portal,” Gabriel announced.

“What is that?” I said, standing up. Gabriel took an immediate step back so that he wouldn’t brush up against me. I ignored the little pulse of hurt that accompanied his action and turned around.

“You would think of it, hmm, perhaps like a button to open an elevator?” Gabriel said. “The magic for the portal is embedded inside this symbol. The demons’ master would have given them a key that could activate the sigil and open the portal.”

Jude pushed forward, shouldering Gabriel and me out of his way. He glared at the sigil like he could open it with his force of will.

“Are you saying that we just need to open this little thing and we can find Wade and the rest of the pack?” Jude said. “The demons went through here?”

“It is possible that the demons took another portal elsewhere once they exited this one,” Nathaniel said. “However, they certainly left the forest this way.”

“Then open it,” Jude said.

“Gabriel just explained that you need a key, you numbskull,” Beezle said. “How are we supposed to get it open without a key?”

Jude turned on us with furious eyes. “I did not prostrate myself before the granddaughter of my enemy so that we could stand around in the forest and stare at the only way I have of getting to my pack.”

“Who prostrated?” I mumbled. Jude had come to me reluctantly and his attitude had hardly recommended him. But I was trying to give him a pass because he was obviously in a tremendous amount of distress over the loss of Wade and the cubs.

“Find a way,” he said.

“Do not speak to Madeline in that fashion,” Nathaniel said. I was a little surprised that he’d stepped forward so readily to defend me. Nathaniel, like Lucifer, generally likes to appear above the fray.

Jude whirled and turned on him, his fists clenched. “I’ll speak to her how I please. You’re not free and clear on this as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me what to do.”

“Nathaniel is the one who found the sigil for us,” I pointed out. “We didn’t have a clue to go on before that.”

“Yes, and isn’t it convenient that he managed to discover something so small in a forest this size,” Jude sneered.

I glanced at Nathaniel, momentarily unsure. It was true that I didn’t think of Nathaniel as trustworthy. I considered him an angel who would always put his own desires first, and those desires were generally not compatible with anyone who wasn’t completely and totally preoccupied with status in the courts.

He was shallow and vain and annoyingly pompous, but he didn’t seem to have any motivation for harming Wade or the pack, and I told Jude so.

“How do you know what motivations he has?” Jude said, turning back to me with a reddened face. “How can you know the secrets of the hearts of the fallen? Just how stupid can you possibly be?”

Gabriel started to say something to this but I waved him away. I didn’t need him to stand in front of me. I could handle Jude.

“You may want to rethink your comment,” I said through my teeth. I felt the familiar surge of power that accompanied the rising tide of anger. I’d tried to be patient with Jude, to be sympathetic to his plight. But I didn’t have to stand still and let him swipe at me. “Given that your alpha is in negotiations with Lucifer, it would not be politic for you to insult his granddaughter.”

“Politics,” Jude spat. “Politics mean nothing to me. They are an excuse for Lucifer to find a way to have dominion over all things.”

I thought that Jude was probably right, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him.