Christina Henry - Black Heart

I rubbed my forehead tiredly. “Really? I have to deal with this now?”

I waited for them to reach me. Bryson looked surprised when he saw that I wasn’t going to make them chase me; then his expression grew wary. They stopped a few feet from me in the air, almost as if we had accidentally met on the street.

“Madeline Black,” Bryson said. “You are under arrest for defying the law of the Agency and willfully crossing into the land of the dead. You have fraternized illegally with a dead soul. You will submit to our authority and return to the Agency for sentencing, or else you will have the Retrievers set upon you.”

“Okay,” I said.

Bryson’s eyebrows winged up to his hairline. “Okay?”

“Okay, call the Retrievers,” I said. “Bring your armies. Do whatever you want. But I am not going with you.”

“You are not a law unto yourself, whatever you may think,” Bryson said angrily.

“Oh, yes, I am,” I said.

Bryson indicated to the other two with a shake of his head that they should grab me.

I gave them a look. “I just killed one of the oldest creatures in the universe. Are you sure that you want to be the one who tries to force me to come back to the Agency with you?”

Bryson’s lackeys paused and glanced at each other.

“Captain . . .” one of them began.

“I will call the Retrievers if you will not do your duty,” Bryson said, with the air of a magician pulling his best trick.

The other two visibly cowered at the thought of being in the presence of the Retrievers. I tried flying around Bryson, who grabbed my arm.

“Where are you going?” Bryson shouted. He was starting to look a little unhinged, like he just couldn’t believe that I would ignore him so completely.

“I told you, do what you want. The Agency has no authority over me anymore,” I said, shaking him off like he was a flea.

“I am going to enjoy watching the Retrievers eat your soul,” Bryson hissed through his teeth.

He pulled a small silver whistle from his pants pocket and put it in his mouth. He blew into it, but I didn’t hear anything.

“You use a dog whistle to call the Retrievers?” I said.

“I have watched from afar as you have defied the Agency, defied the very laws of the universe,” Bryson said. “You cast off your Agent’s mantle, the sacred charge that was given to you. You entered the realm of the dead and brought forth a soul even when you knew that it was forbidden. You do as you please, over and over, and I am sick of it. Now I will watch the Retrievers tear you to pieces, and I will enjoy it.”

I don’t know whether it was my intense exhaustion or the artificial boost I was getting from my acknowledgment of the totality of my power, but I just couldn’t get that worked up about the arrival of the Retrievers. Which was strange. They had been the bogeymen under the bed for as long as I’d been an Agent, and I’d fled through a portal to another world just so I wouldn’t have to tangle with them.

But now I couldn’t care less. “Let them come,” I said to Bryson.

“Agent Black,” one of the other Agents said.

I looked at him. He was young, muscular, and looked like the type who was dedicated to his job. His eyes were worried.

“I’m not an Agent anymore,” I said to him.

“But . . . shouldn’t you be running? Or fighting? Or something?” he said. “The Retrievers are pretty bad.”

“I know,” I said softly. “I’ve seen them before.”

“You have?” the third Agent said.

I nodded. “And a whole lot of other stuff that no one should ever have to see.”

A street strewn with bodies after Ramuell had destroyed it. A cave full of imprisoned nephilim, calling for my blood. My own body missing its heart, my soul floating high above my broken shell.

A maze comprised of my darkest fears and deepest secrets. A room full of children tied to machines that took away their memories.

Gabriel falling, his blood pooling in the snow.

A plaza piled high with bodies, and vampires pouring from the dark underground into the sunlight.

More demons and monsters than I could count dying beneath my sword.

Antares. Ramuell. Baraqiel. Amarantha. Therion. Azazel. Titania.

Alerian rising from the ocean. Puck’s eyes flashing with mischief. Lucifer smiling.

Yes, I had seen a whole lot of stuff no one should ever have to see.

“But, Agent Black—” the first Agent said again.

“She’s not an Agent,” Bryson spat. “She is a rogue, and should be treated as such. Stop trying to help her or you’ll be cited for insubordination.”

I looked at the first Agent and shrugged. “Don’t worry about me, kid.”

The Agent’s face hardened. “It’s not right, sir. She’s pregnant.”

“Pregnant with a monster,” Bryson said. “Her child will be a plague upon the world.”

I shook my head. “Seriously, Agent . . .”

“Hill,” the first guy said.

“Hill, don’t get yourself into trouble with the Agency,” I said. “It’s not worth the aggravation.”

Hill tilted his head to one side. “You’re really not worried about the Retrievers.”

“Nope,” I said.

I put my hands in my pockets and turned south. That was the direction they were coming from. I could feel them now that they had entered our dimension. I didn’t know where they were kept normally, but it wasn’t on our plane of existence.

Hill and the other Agent backed away a little from me. Bryson watched me avidly, practically salivating.

I started to whistle.

The Retrievers approached, their pace quickening. I sensed their anticipation. They longed for a soul to take, for a purpose. They had spent so long inside their prison.

“The Retrievers are your prisoners?” I asked Bryson.

“If we did not imprison them, they would run rampant over the world, devouring souls,” Bryson said dismissively. “We allowed them their lives. Now they can fulfill their desires in the service of the Agency.”

“You need to stop hiding behind the Agency like it’s some kind of untouchable institution,” I said. “You guys have made plenty of mistakes. And one of them was trying to chain creatures that should never have been chained.”

“You sound like you feel sorry for the Retrievers, Agent Black,” Hill said.

“I do,” I said softly.

As they got closer and closer I could feel their pain, the centuries they had suffered in the Agency’s prison. Even now, when they were allowed to run free, chains bound them so that they would be forced to return to the place they hated.

Darkness appeared in the distance. The Retrievers would be here at any moment.

When I saw the Retriever at my house, just before I’d leapt into the portal, I’d had a sense of something huge and horrible, something impossible for the human mind to understand. They sped toward us as giant, inky black shadows, contorting in monstrous shapes.

I pulled my hands from my pockets, and held them out in front of me in supplication as the Retrievers drew near. The creatures howled as they approached, their maws open, ready to devour me.

And then they stopped.

The dark magic inside me poured from my hands, reached out to the Retrievers. The creatures seemed confused. They were supposed to attack me. I poured my compassion into the darkness, and settled it over them like a balm. One of them whimpered, and the three creatures seemed to shrink in confusion. Now the Retrievers looked like nothing more than miserable, confused dogs. They looked like oversized mastiffs, blacker than the night before the dawn.

In this form it was easy to see the silver cuffs that each Retriever had around two legs. The cuffs were held there by the magic and power of the Agency. These were the bindings that forced them to return to their prison after they did the Agency’s bidding.