everything they could in my stead. I’d had
“You don’t need to show me any more,” I said.
Daharan dropped his hands, and the vision of the house burning, surrounded by furious Retrievers, disappeared.
“What will you do now, Madeline?” he asked.
Part of me wanted to go downtown to the Agency and burn the whole thing to the ground. The other part of me recognized that this was a dark-side thought, and that my argument was not with the Agency but with a select few members of it. So I reined in my impulse to destroy things.
The world was getting more dangerous by the minute, especially for me and for my child. Emotion wasn’t enough to carry me through anymore. I had to think, to use my brain.
It was a lot harder to think when my home was gone. I’d always perceived that I was safe there. Supernatural creatures could not cross a threshold without an invitation, and that was powerful magic.
Without a threshold I was vulnerable to more than Retrievers. I could get a hotel room, but the threshold just wasn’t as strong. So many people moving in and out of the same space didn’t create the same sense of home. And if I was in a hotel, you could bet that some freaky thing would come looking for me there, and that would mean that ordinary people would wind up as collateral damage. I had no idea where Nathaniel was staying. I didn’t think that Chloe and Samiel would let me bunk with them, since Samiel had moved out of my place because it was unsafe. There was nowhere for me to go, unless . . .
I looked sharply at Daharan. “Do you think Lucifer knew this would happen? He can see the future, right?”
“He can see aspects of it, yes,” Daharan said. “So can we all.”
“So he knew—you all knew—that I would wind up homeless?” I asked.
“I did not know this,” Daharan said. “Your future is a gray thing to me, despite the familial bond that I feel with you. But soothsaying is not my best skill in any case. That is what Alerian excels at.”
“Alerian knew for sure,” I said, thinking hard. “Possibly Puck. And almost definitely Lucifer.”
“What are you thinking, Madeline?” Daharan asked.
“I’m thinking that it would suit Lucifer very well if I had nowhere to go and no safe place to be, and therefore was forced to come knocking at his door, seeking shelter,” I said.
“Well, what do you know? She can use her brain every once in a while,” said a familiar voice behind me.
I turned slowly, disbelievingly. Beezle was there, a few feet away, flapping his wings so that he was eye level with me in midair. It hurt to see him, to remember the way he’d left when I’d needed him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, and my voice was hard and cold.
I expected a smart remark, some typical Beezle offhandedness. Instead his face was grave as he said, “I’ve been checking back here off and on, looking for you. Everyone thought you were dead. But I knew you’d be here, sooner or later.”
“J.B. would know that I wasn’t dead,” I said, fighting the emotion that had surged with Beezle’s sudden appearance. He was the first creature I wanted to see, but the very last one that I’d expected. “He would have seen the order for my soul to be collected if I was.”
“Sokolov did show him an order, one that said Bryson collected your soul after you fought the Retrievers and lost,” Beezle said.
“But you didn’t believe it,” I said.
“Pfft. I’d never believe you were dead if I didn’t see the body myself,” Beezle said. “Are you my girl or not? I made you too stubborn to die.”
“Am I your girl?” I asked, very quietly, afraid of the answer.
“You know you are,” Beezle said.
He flew to me then, put his little arms around my neck, and the tears were back. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you. If you ever tell anyone I said this, I will deny it to my stone-turning.”
I laughed then, and patted his back, and kissed his head in between his horns. “I missed you.”
He pulled away, wiping his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Enough with the waterworks. The Retrievers are going to be back for you as soon as Sokolov realizes you’ve returned.”
“I will take care of the Retrievers,” Daharan said.
Beezle flew up to my shoulder. It was comforting to feel his weight there again. He stared at Daharan for a long time, then said, “So, another of Lucifer’s brothers, eh? What do you want from Maddy?”
Daharan spread his hands. “Nothing. I have come only to assist my niece in her struggles, which are primarily the fault of Lucifer.”
“Just trying to clear the family name?” Beezle asked skeptically.
Daharan nodded. “I can arrange for the Agency to call off the Retrievers.”
“And how will you do that?” I asked. “The Agency is pretty convinced that they are a law unto themselves. Puck and Lucifer have both indicated to me that even they don’t mess with the soul collectors. And the Agency likes to take a hands-off approach with the other supernatural courts. I learned that from J.B. Basically, the Agency’s got a you-don’t-bother-us-and-we-won’t-bother-you attitude.”
“Except where you’re concerned,” Beezle said.
“Yeah, I don’t know what makes me so special,” I said.
“You’re special because you have managed to piss off an incredibly diverse collection of powerful beings,” Beezle said.
“Through no fault of my own,” I said.
“Fault doesn’t come into it,” Beezle said. “The fact remains that you attract attention, and a lot of it. And the Agency doesn’t like that.”
“I do not like it, either,” Daharan said. “I will be having words with my brother on the subject.”
“Oh, to be a fly on the wall when
“And won’t it attract more attention if you go storming in to the Agency and ask them to leave me alone?” I said to Daharan.
“I will not ask,” he said.
Daharan smiled, and for the first time I realized why his brothers were afraid of him. He exuded a tangible sense of menace, of power, that would not yield to any persuasion. He was the strongest of them all, and the most implacable. His magic was born in fire, and fire was the most pitiless force in the universe. Fire did not discriminate. It could not create. It could only destroy.
I looked into his eyes and I knew that if Sokolov and the Agency did not give him what he wanted, they would burn.
Beezle knew it, too. “Are we okay with this?” he asked in a way that let me know he was
“Don’t harm the Agents,” I said. “They’re just foot soldiers. But Sokolov, and Bryson . . .”
“You can feel free to grind them into little pieces if you like,” Beezle said. “Even I don’t see any point in trying to redeem the two of them.”
“I will find you again, Madeline,” Daharan said.
Then he took to the air. I watched him go until the night covered him and I could see him no longer.
“So,” Beezle said. “Do you think the manager at Dunkin’ Donuts would let us sleep in the back room if we paid her enough?”
“We are not living anywhere you would have twenty-four-hour access to doughnuts,” I said. “You’re heavy enough as it is. What’s Samiel been feeding you?”
Beezle shrugged. “Whatever Chloe eats, mostly. She’s an eating machine. You wouldn’t think that a person that little could eat so much, but she can give me a run for my money. I’ve never seen anyone eat so many tacos in one sitting.”
“So you’ve been gorging yourself while I was half-starved on a distant planet?” I said. “Nice. Very nice.”
Beezle flew off my shoulder so he could look critically at my figure. “It doesn’t look like you haven’t been eating.”
