Black City

“I’d like to see any of you stop me,” I said.

“Shall we put it to the test?” Nathaniel asked. “Perhaps one of us would be unable to restrain you, but I think all of us could. You’ve been through an ordeal. You’re not to go haring off on another mission.”

“I don’t know if you’ve looked at yourself in the mirror today, but you look like death warmed over,” Chloe said.

“And you would only be an encumbrance,” Jude said brutally. “You can’t run as fast as I can. You can’t fly.”

“I can blast a truckload of vampires from here to eternity,” I snapped.

“Nobody is going to let you out that door,” Beezle said. “Besides, you need to stay home and figure out how to defeat the vampires so I can get takeout again.”

“If the city is restored, I doubt that most people will consider delivery of hot wings to be a priority,” I said.

“But the sooner the vampires are gone, the sooner food delivery can resume.”

I put my knuckles to my forehead and rubbed the place between my eyes where a headache was forming. Samiel came out of the hallway carrying several dishes of food. He loaded them up on the dining room table and went back into the kitchen again.

Beezle and Chloe sprang from their seats and settled in at the table before the rest of us could move an inch. Samiel reentered with a plate of bacon. He did not appear to be in the least surprised to see Chloe and Beezle shoveling food on their plates like they hadn’t eaten for twenty years.

I figured it was easier to just make enough for everybody, Samiel signed. Plus, I never know how much she’s going to eat.

“Where did all the food come from?” I asked. “I know my kitchen is not that well stocked.”

“Sam and me went to Costco when we got back from the hospital,” Jude said.

“It was open?” I asked in amazement.

“No, it was locked up tight. But we broke in and got some stuff we needed,” Jude said, then saw the look on my face. “We left money by the register; don’t worry. And we made sure that no one else would be able to get in and loot the place.”

“I don’t even want to know,” I said.

Samiel was watching Chloe, who was hunched over her plate. I don’t know where she puts it, really.

“It takes a lot of food to fuel this brain, pal,” Chloe said.

She’d never looked up, so I have no idea how she knew what Samiel had said. From Samiel’s wide eyes I could tell he didn’t know how she did it, either.

Jude and Nathaniel had joined the others at the table. They were both filling their plates rapidly, although with slightly more decorum than the other two.

“Come on, eat,” Beezle said. “I think you lost another ten pounds on your little adventure. Plus, you’ve got the brain trust here—such as it is. You can pool your thoughts on the defeat of Therion the Smug.”

I sat at the head of the table, pulled a plate over and started loading up before the food disappeared. “The first order of the day is to find out where J.B. is.”

“I told you I could do that,” Jude said.

“And I told you I’m not sold on that plan,” I said.

“If you would think logically instead of emotionally, you would see that what he’s saying makes sense,” Chloe said.

“If you weren’t a chick, I’d punch you in the face for that. What, you think that just because I’m pregnant I’m all emotional?”

“I didn’t say that,” Chloe said mildly. “I just said you were thinking emotionally. And if you hit me in the face, I’d hit you right back. Not that that it would do me any good, really. People who hit you tend to die screaming in little pieces.”

All the men at the table watched this exchange with the uncomfortable expressions of males who do not want to get in between two women. Even Beezle kept his head down and his mouth shut, although that may have been because he’d put about six slices of bacon in his craw.

“I wouldn’t kill you just because you punched me,” I said, insulted. “I’m not a monster.”

“Are you sure about that?” Chloe said. “Because you seem to be a ‘smash first, ask questions later’ kind of person.”

“Not everyone who has fought me has come to their mortal end.”

“Oh, yeah? Name one.”

“I have fought with Madeline and I’m not dead,” Nathaniel said.

“From what I understand, that’s not for lack of trying.”

Samiel rapped the table with his knuckles. She didn’t kill me even though I cut half of her hand off.

His eyes automatically slid to the digits in question. I saw them register surprise. Your hand…

“Just got around to that, did you?” Beezle muttered.

“When did that happen?” Jude asked. “And how?”

“It happened sometime after we put the veil over the hospital. As for how, I have no idea. They were just suddenly there again.”

Jude looked from Nathaniel to me with suspicion. “Just what was involved with this spell, anyway? Because you’ve smelled different ever since you got back,” he said, addressing Nathaniel.

I took a moment to be grateful for the fact that Jude had never met Puck; otherwise he would have made the connection immediately.

“Can we refocus, please?” I said loudly. “Whether or not I am a monster can be debated at a different time, as can the consequences of the protective spell.”

Although I hoped to never talk about the circumstances of the spell with anyone. It would do none of them good to know that I had tried to climb inside Nathaniel in midair.

Jude pushed back from the table, his plate cleaned. “I will look for J.B. and return within a day.”

“We didn’t settle that,” I said.

“There is no point in going around in circles only to come to the same conclusion,” Jude said steadily.

“Wade will kill me if anything happens to you.”

“Wade knows well the risk I have taken in staying here.”

“I wouldn’t be too happy, either.”

“Madeline Black, I have been alive since the time of the Romans. I can handle a few vampires.”

“Everything can die,” I said softly, and we all knew who I was thinking about.

“But I won’t,” Jude said.

You can’t make that promise. I took a deep breath, tried to think with my brain instead of my heart.

“Okay,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making a decision I would regret. “Okay. But don’t bother checking his condo. I can guarantee that J.B.’s been sleeping at the office since all this started.”

“That may have protected him, then,” Nathaniel said. “Does not the Agency have wards to keep out vampires?”

“Yes,” I said. “But if he was out on a soul pickup, or if he decided to fight the vamps against orders…”

“Or if the vampires brought in a witch to break the wards,” Beezle said.

“A witch,” I said, looking at Nathaniel. “A witch could have put all the patients in the hospital under that sleeping spell.”

“Another player?” Chloe said. “How big is this game?”

“It’s not a game.”

“It is to Therion,” Chloe said. “And probably to Lucifer, too.”

She was right, but it really went against the grain for me to admit anyone was right but me.

“I’ll be back within a day,” Jude promised, and he transformed into a wolf, his clothing falling to the floor.