Black Night

Beezle came zooming out again with the phone. I snatched it from his hands and dialed the Medi-Team number. But when I held the receiver to my ears I heard nothing but the crackle of static.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

“I told you,” Beezle said.

It was hard to think. Blood flowed from the wounds at my back and arms, slow but unceasing. I tried to stand but found that I was too weak, and my knees slipped in the blood pooling on the peeling wood of the porch. My face slammed into the railing and I saw stars.

“Maddy, don’t try to move,” Beezle said, his voice alarmed. “I’ll get help.”

“From where?” I asked, holding my hand to the side of my face. I thought I’d heard something crack when my cheek hit the wood.

“I’ll get Azazel,” he said.

I had to think for a minute about why that was bad. “If you get Azazel and he comes here and finds Gabriel missing, he will kill him.”

“If I don’t get Azazel now and you bleed to death in your own backyard, he will kill me.”

“Don’t get him. I’ll figure out something.” The last person I wanted to see at that moment was Daddy dearest.

The wind picked up, and I shivered inside my coat. Beezle was having trouble staying close, his wings buffeted by a breeze that was fast becoming a gale. I reached out and grabbed him, stuffing him inside my pocket before he blew away.

“What the . . . ?” I said, and crawled slowly toward J.B., who wasn’t moving at all. I felt for a pulse and found one, but he did not stir at my touch.

The wind racketed around us. My hair came free of the woolen hat I was wearing. I covered J.B.’s still body with my own, clinging to his shoulders.

A faint red light appeared just above my garden, and the light grew until it was a circle the size of a city Dumpster. Inside the circle, wind swirled and electricity pulsed.

Beezle poked his head out of my pocket.

“It’s a portal,” he shouted.

I knew that. I just didn’t know who was in it, and if they were friend or foe. My magic crackled feebly across my fingertips. I was too weak to do anything.

A figure emerged from the portal, tall and blond and radiantly beautiful. He brushed some imaginary lint from his white-feathered wings. The portal closed behind him and the wind died down. The angel looked up, and the natural arrogance on his face turned to surprise.

I had been wrong. There was one person that I wanted to see less than my father.

“Hello, Nathaniel,” I said to my fiancé.

3

NATHANIEL HURRIED TOWARD THE PORCH, TAKING IN the situation in an instant.

“Madeline, what has happened?” he said, as he pulled me away from J.B., put me in his lap and checked my wounds. “Where is your bodyguard?”

Nathaniel never referred to Gabriel by his name, which was just one of many things that I disliked about the man whom my father had engaged me to against my will.

“Antares,” I said briefly. I felt dizzy, and Nathaniel wasn’t helping by shaking me around.

“How did you incur these injuries?” he said, covering each with his hands one after another. I felt a familiar heat, like the light of the sun was burning through my veins.

This kind of healing used to be very painful for me, when I was still mostly human. Now that I had acknowledged my heritage and my heart had been replaced by an angel’s heartstone, it was only slightly less painful. The half of me that would always be human knew that the sun was not supposed to run wild in your blood, nor was it supposed to heal you. The angelic half of me welcomed the heat and the burn like homecoming.

The blood ceased to flow, and I felt the skin knit together painfully. I didn’t feel like getting up and dancing around yet, though. The kind of healing that Nathaniel did could close up injuries but it didn’t help with recovery time.

“Thanks,” I said, and tried not to sound resentful as I did. It wasn’t Nathaniel’s fault that my father had affianced us without my permission, or that I wanted someone else. It was his fault, however, that he was totally unlikable in every way.

“What about J.B.?” I asked, squirming off his lap and onto the porch.

Too much proximity to Nathaniel made me uncomfortable. He is beautiful, and it is hard not to be drawn to beauty. But he is also a giant jerk, and no amount of attractiveness can make up for that. I did not want to think about our wedding night.

“J.B.?” he said, his eyebrows raised. “This human that you were . . .”

He trailed off, staring at J.B.’s limp form.

“Gods above and below,” he swore, and rushed to J.B.’s side. He lifted J.B.’s eyelids, checked his pulse, and then picked him up as if a six-foot-plus man weighed nothing. “What have you done with Amarantha’s son?”

I looked at Beezle, who was perched like a crow on the railing of the porch. He looked surprised.

“Who is Amarantha, and what does she have to do with J.B.?” I asked, pulling myself to my feet. The world wobbled in many directions.

Nathaniel kicked open the door and flew up the back stairs to my apartment without answering me. I heard a crash as he knocked out the door upstairs as well.

“Those locks cost money, you know!” I shouted, annoyed by both his high-handedness and his abandonment of me. Did he think I could walk or fly in this state? “What crawled up his ass?”

“Amarantha is the queen of the local faerie court,” Beezle said. “I didn’t know J.B. was her son.”