“Every time I tried to walk to the stairs, go out the front door or fly out a window, I felt some force turning me away,” Nathaniel said. “It was maddening.”
“I wonder why you could feel him and the others couldn’t,” I said thoughtfully. “You don’t have faerie in your blood, do you? I can usually feel Lucifer when he’s approaching.”
Nathaniel drew himself up haughtily. “I am the only child of two first-generation angels.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I wasn’t casting aspersions on your character. Just curious.”
Beezle looked curious, too, but he didn’t pursue it. No use getting Nathaniel annoyed over nothing.
“Puck as good as told me that if I tried to throw away the stone, it would come back to me,” I said. “But there has to be some way to prohibit him from entering without permission.”
Beezle tapped his chin. “He got around the threshold rule by giving you the jewel in the first place. That implied permission when you accepted it, even if you didn’t realize it.”
“Faeries love loopholes,” I muttered.
“And so do fallen angels,” Nathaniel said. “We cannot get rid of the jewel, and we cannot prevent Puck from entering the house, but we can bind the stone in such a way that it will imprison Puck when he enters.”
“I don’t want to imprison him,” I said, thinking of Puck’s speech about his origins. I wasn’t up to making any creature that old angry with me.
“Not imprison forever,” Nathaniel said. “He would be able to return easily to his own realm. But he would not be able to enter your home and walk about freely. He would be confined to one space unless you gave him express permission otherwise.”
I nodded. “Like a holding cell. I like it. How can we do it?”
“First decide where you would like to place the jewel,” Nathaniel said.
“As far from Madeline as possible,” Jude growled. “The basement. Or the shed outside.”
“That’s not going to work,” I said. “I want to know when he’s here. It should be someplace visible to anyone who comes through, like in this room.”
“You want Puck popping up when we’re in the middle of dinner?” Beezle asked.
“It’s better than him showing up in my bedroom when I’m asleep,” I said.
“Very well,” Nathaniel said. “Bring me the jewel and I will perform the binding.”
I started to stand, realized my legs were still shaky, and sat down again.
“It’s in the drawer of my bedside table,” I told Samiel.
Samiel disappeared for a few minutes, then reappeared, shaking his head.
It wasn’t there. Did you put it somewhere else?
“I just put it there a half hour ago,” I said. “Where did it go?”
I pushed to my feet, and Jude came to support me so I wouldn’t fall. “Let me look.”
Jude and I led the parade down the hall to my bedroom, where I was forced to suffer the indignity of everyone pawing through my belongings looking for the stone.
“It’s not here,” I said finally, sitting on the bed in defeat.
“Puck must have enspelled it to make sure that we couldn’t change the terms of the magic,” Nathaniel said.
“That sneaky little so-and-so,” I said.
“I guess he knows more about loopholes than you do,” Beezle said to Nathaniel.
Nathaniel glared at Beezle, but said nothing.
“Okay, so we can’t solve the Puck problem right now,” I said.
“What problem can we solve now?” Beezle asked. “We still don’t know where Azazel is or what he’s up to. You’ve really ticked off Titania, and the solution for that issue doesn’t seem to be in sight. You forgot your pickup this morning and lost the soul from yesterday. I think the only thing you can do right now is go into work and fill out forms that express your incompetence as an Agent.”
“Why is it that when you speak a feeling of hopelessness descends upon me?” I asked. “Has Chloe been around here lately?”
Samiel shook his head. I haven’t seen her since she left yesterday with the binder.
“Hopefully she’s working on deciphering it,” I said. “I’ll call J.B. and see if he knows anything.”
I dialed J.B. and waited while the phone rang. Everyone watched me.
“Don’t the rest of you have something to do?” I asked.
“No,” Beezle said. “Your life is our life.”
“Maddy,” J.B. said as he picked up the phone. He sounded worried. “I was just going to call you.”
“Why?” I said, a feeling of dread coming over me. “What’s after me now?”
“It’s not that,” J.B. said. “Something’s happened. I need you to meet me downtown.”
“Where?” I asked.
“One fifty South Wacker,” he said. “There’s a plaza between two big office buildings there. You’ll have to leave Jude at home. You need to come under a cloak so no one sees you.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said.
Jude was already shaking his head. He’d heard every word of the conversation. Wolf hearing is incredible.
“You’re not going alone,” he said.
“I don’t have to,” I replied. “Samiel can go with me.”
“Or I can,” Nathaniel said.
“Samiel can go with me,” I repeated. I didn’t want to be alone with Nathaniel right now. I wanted to be with someone I was sure I could trust. I was still feeling a little unsteady after my encounter with Puck, and I hadn’t even had time to contemplate the implications of my dream of Gabriel. “He can fly and he knows how to cloak himself. The rest of you stay here.”
“And do what?” Jude said. “Twiddle our thumbs?”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure something will show up to attack me sooner or later, and you can destroy it if I’m away.”
“I don’t want to destroy things,” Jude growled. “I’m here to keep you safe.”
“And you do,” I said. “I feel much safer knowing that you are here.”
I didn’t say that the reason I felt safer was because Nathaniel was hanging around the house and I knew Jude would take care of him if necessary, but I didn’t have to. Everyone seemed to know this without my saying it aloud.
Nathaniel’s face hardened. “Since I do not seem to be needed or wanted, I will return to my room and await your further instructions.”
“You do that,” Beezle said.
Nathaniel went out of my room and into the kitchen. He slammed the back door so hard that I heard it bounce off the frame.
“And that’s another problem you can’t solve,” Beezle said.
“Don’t remind me,” I said. “You stay here, too.”
“Aww,” Beezle whined. “But I want to see what J.B.’s being all secretive about.”
“You’ll find out when I get home,” I said. “My life is your life, remember?”
“But it’s so much more fun when I can actually be there instead of experiencing things vicariously,” Beezle said.
“Look at it this way. If you stay, you can finish off the potato chips before Samiel comes home and gets a crack at them.”
“Good point,” Beezle said.
Fifteen minutes later Samiel and I were on our way downtown under a veil. The few stars that were visible through the ambient light of the city shone in the dark sky. Cars moved below us as people headed home after work along Lake Shore Drive.
We cut across the Loop, following the curve from East Wacker to South Wacker Drive, which was presently a big pit instead of a working road. It seemed like it had been under construction forever and there was no sign of completion in sight. There were detour signs everywhere and snarled traffic as drivers, cabs and cyclists tried to negotiate the limited options left available to them.
The address that J.B. had given us was on the east side of the Chicago River. As we approached I saw that
