wings. “Where’s Nathaniel?”
“Got tossed that way when the monster started yelling,” Beezle said, pointing behind him. “Not such a smartypants with those wings now, is he?”
There was no sign of the angel. Behind the hillock was a tangle of trees and darkness, surrounded by mist.
“How come your cage didn’t get tossed, too?” I asked.
“It’s attached to the ground. Um, maybe you want to direct your attention to the giant monster squishing toward us? It seems to have caught your scent.”
“Yup, right on that,” I said.
I tried to get a good look at the creature as I readied my magic. The shifting clouds of mist made it difficult to get a clear view. There was zero sense in trying to overpower it—the creature was the size of a building and had about twenty tentacles with which to grab and crush me. I couldn’t blind it, because the monster was already blind.
“Any idea what this thing’s weakness is?” I asked Beezle.
He put a claw on his lower lip like he was thinking. “I’m not sure, but I think most monsters dislike fire.”
“Fire. Right. I don’t know how to make regular fire.”
Beezle snorted. “Are you sure about that? You do have a heartstone now.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Umm, heartstone? Power of the sun inside you? Did you get denser while I was away?”
The monster squished closer. I tried not to gag at its scent. If I still had the abilities that I’d had when Evangeline possessed me, I’d be able to take down this creature without blinking.
I knew that I had a heartstone, but I didn’t see how that would help me. I didn’t know half of what I was capable of doing. If Gabriel were with me, he could help me. But Gabriel was gone, and Nathaniel had disappeared, and the only being around to help me was a snorting little gargoyle who seemed to think that I was acting dumb by not using a power that I didn’t even know I had.
Beezle huffed. “Whatever you’re going to do, I’d advise you to do it now.”
“Better to try than to be eaten, I guess.”
Lucky for me the monster moved at the pace of a slug. I gathered up my magic, and then I did something that I had only done once before. I thought about my heartstone, about the pulse of sunlight that burned in the core of me, and I drew on that power. As I did, I felt heat burn inside, a beam of sun that traveled through my blood and veins and muscles and penetrated the source of magic inside me.
My magic burst open like a flower blooming at its touch. I knew what to do, knew as easily as if the knowledge had always been inside me and was simply waiting to be awakened—as maybe it was.
The monster crept closer. Its tentacles lashed out, seeking me. It opened its horrible mouth, a mouth filled with rows of tiny serrated teeth that shifted back and forth like the blades of a power saw.
I held out my hand in front of me, pushed the power down my arm and through my fingers. An arrow of flame shot from the tips of my fingers into the creature’s mouth and disappeared into its throat.
“Bull’s-eye,” I said, satisfied.
“Nothing appears to be happening,” Beezle said.
“Wait for it,” I replied.
The monster had stopped, and if a horrible, squishy, tentacly thing with a dozen blind eyes could look confused, then that was the look on its face. Its arms waved about listlessly.
“Still waiting,” Beezle said.
I looked at him. “Have a little faith.”
And just as I said that, the monster emitted an enormous sulfurous belch, and then burst into flames.
It screamed in rage and pain, and the smell of its burning flesh was horrible. A flaming tentacle lashed out, and I was forced to run backward toward the trees in order to avoid it.
“Oh, sure, just leave me here!” Beezle shouted after me.
“You’re safe enough,” I shouted back, but as I retreated a little ways into the cover of the trees, I wasn’t sure about that. I was hoping that the cage would provide some protection should one of the monster’s burning arms smash into it, but maybe the force of the tentacle would knock Beezle’s cage off its mooring and into the swamp.
I turned back, trying to see if I could free Beezle from a distance. The thick, greasy smoke pouring off the nowdead monster made it impossible to see. I inhaled shallowly but I still coughed and choked as the smoke filled my lungs. A heavy, oily residue filled my mouth and nose.
“Why can’t anything ever be easy?” I muttered.
I dropped to the ground and tried not to think about what I was crawling through. My fingers clawed in moss and mud, and I could feel my knees sinking in the muck as I pushed forward. Sweat and smoke stung my eyes and made them water.
“Beezle, shout out, would you?” I called. “I can’t find you in this mess.”
“To your right,” a growly voice said in a long-suffering tone, and it was not three inches from my ear.
I turned my head to see Beezle watching me frog-crawl through the mud.
“That look really works for you,” he said.
“Why is it that I wanted you back again?” I said.
I came to my knees, inspecting the cage. There didn’t appear to be any kind of door or lock.
“How does this open?” I asked.
“Antares sealed it with one of his momma’s spells,” Beezle said.
“Antares took you?” I asked. “Did he throw the bomb through the window, too?”
“Yup,” Beezle said. “He came up on the house under a cloak of invisibility and then manifested in front of me. Before I had a chance to warn you he had me magically bound and was tossing the bomb.”
“Then he came back and took you to the portal in the alley,” I finished. “Do you know if he was the one who put the portal there?”
“I don’t think that he did,” Beezle said thoughtfully.
“It seemed like, from the many evil-villain mutterings that I could catch, he was using someone else’s portal for his own device. He seemed to think he was being pretty clever.”
“He usually does,” I said. “But why would he send me that note when he clearly wants me to get blown up? What’s the point?”
Beezle frowned inside the cage. “What note?”
“The one that said, ‘I know where they are keeping him,’” I replied, running my hand around the seam of the cage. I could sense the spell that Antares had used to seal the cage shut. It was imperfect, and when I prodded it gently with my own power I could feel the spaces in the magic where it would give way. The only thing that I was afraid of was a booby trap. “Do you know if Antares wove anything dangerous in with this seal?”
“It didn’t seem that way, unless there’s a trap already inside the spell. He was in kind of a hurry.”
“Trying to avoid the big monster that lives in the swamp, I bet. Well, there’s nothing for it but to try.”
“Says the woman who’s probably not going to get splattered into a million pieces if you’re wrong.”
“Do you really think I’d let you get splattered into a million pieces?” I said, and tried to keep the uncertainty that I felt out of my voice. I wasn’t going to let Beezle get blown up if I could help it.
I carefully found a weak spot in the spell and pushed my power through it as gently as I could. The top of the cage flew off with a surprising amount of force and clocked me in the chin.
Beezle snorted a laugh as he flew out of the cage.
I rubbed my chin. “And I say it again: why was it that I wanted you back?”
He shrugged as he hovered in front of me. “Because you’ll never survive without me?”
I pushed wearily to my feet. “I may not survive with you at this rate. Now, what the hell happened to my useless fiance?”
Beezle pointed into the woods. “Like I said, he went that way.”
“I wonder if he got knocked out,” I said as I squelched my way through the mud toward the trees. “Nathaniel!”
He didn’t answer. The heavy mist and the shadows of moss cascading from the branches made everything
