“She has awoken!” a voice called, a male voice, nearly as beautiful as her love’s, and she thought this must be another of the fallen.
Hands reached down and roughly grasped her beneath her shoulders and pulled her through the door, and she had no time to make herself dignified, for those hands covered her eyes with a strip of cloth, and she was pushed forward and told to walk.
She did not want to cry, or to show fear, but she trembled deep inside, and her children felt her tremble and they tumbled about inside her, fluttering their wings.
All around her was the murmur of beautiful voices, like the pealing of silver bells, and then there was one voice that rose above them all, a voice even lovelier than the others, a voice that spoke of the Morningstar’s destruction, and Evangeline as the agent of that destruction. They would murder her love and her children for their own power, for their own pettiness. They would keep her alive long enough to birth the children and then they would be sacrificed. Evangeline felt her heart falling away, the blood draining from her face, and the darkness rising up to meet her once again.
And then I was flying up, and up, and up, and my eyes flew open, and Gabriel’s mouth was on mine, but he wasn’t kissing me; he was saving me. He sucked the great black cloud into his own body, and as he did I saw his face contort in pain. I felt the last of the cloud clinging to the inside of my throat but Gabriel pulled air until those tiny wisps emerged, and then he fumbled in his pocket for something. I saw him take out a small, carved wooden box and then exhale the cloud into it. I could hear the thing inside the cloud screaming in fury as Gabriel closed the lid.
He looked exhausted. His dark eyes shone in the whiteness of his face and he inhaled and exhaled deeply, like he had just finished a hard run. He cradled me in his arms, and our faces were very close together.
“Maddy?” Beezle said, and I realized that the gargoyle sat on my legs.
“What a really weird family we are,” I said without thinking, but before I could be embarrassed about it, Gabriel laughed, and Beezle crawled up from my lap to wrap his little arms around my neck, and I decided that instead of being embarrassed I would just be grateful.
“Thank you,” I said to Gabriel.
He nodded, the ghost of a smile still on his face. “Of course. I was not sure what Antares had done to the gargoyle until I saw the curse emerge, but I am glad that I was able to reverse it.”
“ ‘The gargoyle’!” Beezle said crossly. “I have a name, devil.”
“Antares?” I said. “Is that the guy who was here earlier?”
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “He is your half brother, but he despises your father and he has sworn allegiance to Focalor, one of Lord Azazel’s enemies.”
“Uh, excuse me?” Beezle said, releasing my neck long enough to wave his clawed hands in Gabriel’s face. “I thought you put that geas on me so I wouldn’t tell her all this crap. I thought that she was ‘not ready for the knowledge. ’ Now you’re just going to spill everything without preparing her?”
“She has broken the spell on her mind. There is no point in continuing the pretense now,” Gabriel said. “She already knows about Azazel.”
“She already knows . . . I thought we agreed that I would be the one who told her?”
“I did not make any such agreement,” Gabriel said serenely.
“You know that you implied it, you ...” Beezle began.
“Hey,” I said, snapping my fingers in Beezle’s face. I didn’t know what bothered me more—the fact that I had a demonic sibling or that my companions were talking about me like I was an infant. “Sitting right here. Not that the idea that I have a fallen angel for a dad and a really ugly half brother isn’t shocking as hell. I mean, I would have probably enjoyed a little bit of prologue to that information. And that reminds me, Beezle—just what did you do with the emergency chocolate?”
Beezle looked abashed, but before I could berate him for eating all the candy, Gabriel asked, “What happened to you when the nuvem entered you?”
“The nuvem?” I asked, avoiding his question. I didn’t know why, but I wanted to keep Evangeline to myself for the moment.
“It is a kind of demon that is also a curse. It was meant to bind the gar . . . Beezle,” he amended. “It would have accelerated his progression to stone and then bound his powers so he could no longer protect this building. To you it would have seemed like he was dead.”
“Why didn’t Antares just kill him, then? Not that I want anything to happen to you, Beezle,” I said, cuddling him close to my cheek.
“Gargoyles can’t be killed,” they both said together, and Beezle glared at Gabriel.
“Why is that?”
“Because a gargoyle is a protector. It is bound by its magical gifts to protect its domicile eternally. A gargoyle may sleep, sometimes for many centuries, but its powers will always be present and aware of any threats. By binding Beezle’s powers, the nuvem was coming as close to killing him as it could,” Gabriel said.
“Why is all of this happening now? Why are monsters and demonic half brothers coming out of the woodwork just when you show up?” I said.
“An excellent question,” Beezle said, giving Gabriel a smug look. “It’s almost as if you led them here.”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes at Beezle. “You know full well, gargoyle, that I was sent here by Lord Azazel to protect Madeline. Perhaps he read the signs and knew that danger was imminent.”