Black Howl

Page 5

I put one knee on the ground and leaned forward, trying to make out the shape that was pressed into the dirt. It was inside a demon’s footprint, and it wasn’t perfectly clear, but it seemed to be the shape of a small V on top of a circle.
“This looks like a demon’s sigil,” I said, getting excited. I looked up for Samiel.
I realized that Samiel and Gabriel were gone, too. Beezle snoozed away up on his branch.
I didn’t know whether to be worried or annoyed that both of them had disappeared without a word. The last time Gabriel had gone missing, he’d been taken captive by Samiel and traded to Focalor.
I didn’t think I had to worry about Samiel’s intentions anymore, but maybe some other creature had gotten both of them. Or maybe they had gone off following clues, so absorbed in their search that they didn’t think to notify me.
“And standing here speculating is not productive,” I muttered to myself. “Beezle!”
He kept rumbling away like a freight train, so I goosed him with my power. He came awake with a snort and a glare.
“What was that for?” he said, flying down to my shoulder.
“Samiel and Gabriel are gone,” I said.
“You woke me up for that?”
“Don’t you care that more than half our party is missing?”
“They’re probably just following leads, the way you asked them to,” he said, rolling his head and cracking his neck.
“Yeah, probably,” I said unconvincingly.
The forest seemed unnaturally quiet all of a sudden, as if all the little creatures had gone still in the presence of a predator. I stilled, too, listening for any sign of Gabriel or Samiel or Jude moving through the brush. Beezle stopped moving, finally catching on that something was wrong.
We waited a few minutes. His claws tightened on my shoulders. I tried to steady my breath, to control my galloping heart. Something was about to happen. I could feel it.
There was a sudden crash in the woods only a few feet from where we stood. I turned toward the sound, saw the flashes of light that indicated magic, heard the repeated percussion of flesh hitting flesh, followed by grunts of pain.
I started toward the noise, drawing the sword and holding it before me. The snake tattooed on my right palm wriggled underneath my glove like it recognized its former home. Beezle squeezed his claws in warning. “Wait. It could be a trick, or a trap.”
“It could also be Samiel or Gabriel getting the sense knocked out of them,” I said, and continued toward the sound anyway.
A second later Samiel and Gabriel appeared, Samiel looking proud, Gabriel grim. They each held the shoulder of an unconscious figure they dragged between them. Jude followed behind them, wiping his knuckles on his shirt.
The figure had white wings, and golden hair that covered his face, but I knew who he was even before they tossed him to the ground at my feet.
“Nathaniel,” I said. “What is he doing here?”
3
“LOOKS LIKE WE FOUND OUR CULPRIT,” JUDE SAID with a satisfied air. “Once he wakes up we can make him tell us where Wade is.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. This was a complication that I had not foreseen.
“Look, I’ll agree that it’s suspicious that he’s out here in the middle of nowhere at the same time as a demon attack, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s the mastermind behind it. There could be any number of reasons for his appearance.”
“Such as?” Jude challenged.
“I don’t know,” I said helplessly, looking at Gabriel and Samiel. Samiel shrugged.
“He could be here as an ambassador from Lord Azazel,” Gabriel said slowly. “Nathaniel is often sent on such missions for both Lord Azazel and Lord Lucifer. He is a trusted emissary.”
“Then why was he sneaking through the woods, trying not be detected?” Jude said. “I followed him for a good distance and he was clearly trying not to make noise.”
“Just because he was trying to be circumspect doesn’t mean that his actions are suspicious,” I said.
“Just because he is your fiancé doesn’t mean that he is above suspicion,” Jude snapped back. “If anything, his ties to Lucifer make him less credible in my eyes.”
“You’re letting your prejudice blind you. And Nathaniel is not my fiancé,” I shouted.
I wondered why I was trying to defend Nathaniel. He had assaulted me in Amarantha’s castle. Even though he had been under the influence of a spell at the time, I still suspected that the seed of jealousy had always been there, and that the spell had only magnified thoughts and impulses that he had buried deep within.
I did not like him, I did not trust him and I certainly didn’t want to be married to him. But I also did not want to make assumptions, to miss out on finding the real culprits because we were distracted by Nathaniel.
The subject of this heated conversation groaned, and we all looked down. Nathaniel opened his ice-blue eyes, saw himself surrounded by a bunch of hostile stares, and seemed to calculate in an instant the correct course of action. He held his hands up above his shoulders while still lying prone on the ground, and made no move to sit up.
“What are you doing here, Nathaniel?” I asked.
“Why ask him? He’s just going to lie. It’s the way of his kind,” Jude said.
“Shut up, Jude,” I said, and looked at Nathaniel expectantly.
He glanced again at Jude, at Samiel, at Gabriel. “May I speak with you alone, Madeline?”
“No,” Gabriel, Jude and Beezle replied, and Samiel shook his head angrily.
I could have told the four of them that I was quite capable of handling Nathaniel. When he had attacked me I’d blasted a hole in him that had taken weeks to heal. But it didn’t seem to be the time to engage in another pointless argument. We had enough of those going around.
Nathaniel sighed. “I was following you.”
Of all the answers he could have given, this was the least expected.
“Why?” I asked blankly. “How?”
He looked away from me, seemingly embarrassed. “I arrived at your home just before you entered the portal. I overheard your conversation and wanted to assist you.”
“Why?” I asked again. I’d indicated pretty clearly to Nathaniel that I would be happy if I never saw him again the last time we’d spoken.
He turned his head back and gave me a very pointed stare. “Do you not know?”
My cheeks heated in embarrassment as the other four looked at me speculatively. “Oh, for crying out loud. Okay, show’s over.”
I reached down and hauled Nathaniel to his feet. I immediately regretted this, first since it required touching him—a thing I was loath to do—and second since he towered over me by about a foot. I definitely felt I’d lost the advantage I’d had when he was on the ground.
All the men bristled as their prisoner brushed the dirt from his clothing. That was Nathaniel—appearance above all. So what if you were surrounded by a bunch of people who hated you? It just wasn’t acceptable to have your jacket wrinkled while being beaten to a pulp.
“If you were here to help Maddy, why were you sneaking through the forest?” Jude asked. “You were heading in the opposite direction of the clearing.”
Something flickered in Nathaniel’s eyes. It was so brief I thought maybe I’d imagined it. Then he looked at me and said, “I was following the demon trail through the woods. I thought perhaps if I found something, I could redeem myself in your eyes.”
I wanted to tell him that it would take a lot more than that to redeem him, and that his references to an incident I’d rather forget weren’t doing a lot to help his case.
I looked at Jude for verification. “Was he actually on the demon’s trail?”
Jude looked mutinous. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Okay, then. Fine. Nathaniel is here to help, and we can all treat him accordingly.”
Nobody looked happy about this except Nathaniel, who seemed to regain some of his usual arrogance.
“If you will all follow me this way, I did in fact discover something interesting,” he said.
Then he turned and disappeared into the woods without waiting to see if we would follow.
“Yes, your majesty,” I muttered.
Gabriel and Samiel looked at me questioningly. Jude scowled, as usual. I heaved a sigh and went after Nathaniel, and the rest fell in line behind me.
Nobody spoke as we moved through the forest, not even Beezle. I suspected that he was trying to save me some embarrassment by not telling Nathaniel off. Beezle understood better than the others how vulnerable I’d felt since Nathaniel’s assault, no matter how big a game I talked.
Jude was obviously still furious because I didn’t suspect Nathaniel, Gabriel was being cool and reserved as usual, and Samiel was waiting to see what happened before he passed judgment.
I was trying very hard not to think too much about Nathaniel or my somersaulting stomach, and concentrate instead on moving quietly through the woods. The other four glided over rocks and tree roots like water, but my boots managed to detect every possible obstacle to trip over. I just wasn’t born with the sneaky-ninja gene.
After several minutes had passed Nathaniel came to a stop in a small clearing. A large outcropping of rock with visible glacial striations rose along the west side of the clearing. Green moss covered in frost clung weakly to the formation. The weak winter sun shone above the bare branches of red oaks and sugar maples.
“This is the place where the demons’ trail ran out when I followed them earlier,” Jude said. “So if that’s what you’ve brought us here for, we can just turn around.”
Nathaniel didn’t even deign to answer Jude. He simply crossed to the bottom of the rock formation and beckoned to me.
“If you would look here,” he said, and pointed to a spot about four feet above the ground.
I stepped closer and crouched down, peering into the shadowed notch where Nathaniel had pointed.