Christina Henry: Black Night

Beezle popped out of my pocket and glared up at me. “You kept me in there on purpose.”

“Absolutely. I didn’t want Antares to turn you into gargoyle bits.”

“I can handle that powerless fool,” he said indignantly.

I stroked his head soothingly. “Yes, I’m very unreasonable. I just don’t know what I would do without you.”

Beezle tried not to look pleased and failed.

There was a groan from nearby, and I looked around the backyard. J.B. was lying facedown in my fallow vegetable garden. He had been wearing a puffy green ski jacket, and the back of the jacket had been scorched away by the bolt. The garment hung in blackened ribbons from his shoulders. I could see long shiny welts on his back where the magic had burned through his clothing.

I rushed to his side as he attempted to turn over. Beezle emerged from my pocket and flapped around us like a bossy mosquito.

“Don’t turn him that way. You’ll get dirt on the burns,” he said.

“I think I can handle this without instruction,” I said, annoyed.

Kneeling in the dirt, I helped J.B. to sit up. His face was scraped and bruised from the impact with the ground.

“Was there a tornado?” he asked, wincing in pain as I helped him to his feet.

“A tornado named Antares,” I said grimly.

“Where are the others?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and tried not to worry about Gabriel. Surely he’d just been delayed at the crime scene with Baraqiel. Antares’s henchmen were no match for a half nephilim, whatever my deluded brother might think.

J.B. leaned heavily on my shoulders and we hobbled toward my back porch. He negotiated the three wooden steps very slowly.

“I don’t think we can get to the second floor like this,” I said, my head spinning. The loss of blood and the shock of my earlier fall from the sky finally caught up with me. I sat down on the top step and J.B. collapsed beside me. We leaned on each other like two drunks, both of us panting from exertion.

“You need an elevator,” J.B. said.

“She needs help from that useless devil, is what she needs,” Beezle said, fluttering around my head anxiously. “He could heal her in a trice if only he were where he was supposed to be.”

“You don’t think that Antares’s men really could have harmed him?” I asked.

Beezle scoffed. “Those two miscreants? Not a chance. And remember, Baraqiel was with him.”

“Baraqiel was injured,” I pointed out.

“And if it was so easy to handle Antares’s men, where are Gabriel and Baraqiel?” J.B. asked.

Once worry was given free rein, I could conjure any number of scenarios in which Gabriel and Baraqiel could disappear. They had been attacked by Samiel. They had been attacked by Focalor, one of the Grigori who hated Azazel. They had been attacked by some other horror that I hadn’t thought of yet.

Horrors that you cannot comprehend. That was what Antares had said. He was a braggart, and most of the time I was inclined to ignore what came out of his mouth. But there had been truth in his voice. He knew something about what had happened in that alley. He knew, and he was obviously planning to use that information to his advantage. In the meantime, Gabriel was missing, J.B. was horribly burned, and I was bleeding out on my back porch. And Beezle was driving me crazy by fluttering around and muttering imprecations about Gabriel.

“Beezle, why don’t you make yourself useful and find some Band-Aids?” I said.

“And possibly some kind of burn cream,” added J.B.

Beezle flew around the house to the window that was always open on the east side. As he went, I was sure I heard him say something about needing a doughnut.

“No doughnuts until I stop bleeding!” I shouted after him.

J.B. snorted a laugh, then grabbed his side. “It hurts to laugh.”

I had enough sense to realize that J.B.’s injuries were worse than mine. He might be hemorrhaging internally or have a broken rib from when Antares blasted him across the yard. The burns on his back had to be causing him incredible pain. He needed medical attention, and I needed to get my bleeding self together and provide it.

I didn’t have the knack of healing that Gabriel and many other angels seemed to possess. Or if I did, I couldn’t yet access or control it.

But I could call an Agent Medi-Team. They were specially trained to deal with supernatural injuries that occurred on the job. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have called them already. I groped in my coat pocket for my cell phone and couldn’t find it. I patted all of the pockets in frustration and realized that it had probably fallen out during my skydiving attempt.

“Do you have your cell phone?” I asked J.B. as he watched me curiously.

He looked kind of glazed, like he was drunk. I probably looked the same way. I felt myself getting more lightheaded as the minutes passed, and it occurred to me that Antares must have some kind of anticoagulant in his claws. I was still bleeding as heavily as before and the wounds showed no signs of clotting.

J.B. was slow to respond, so I started patting him all over, looking for the telltale bulge of the phone.

“Is this really the time?” J.B. asked as he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes while I searched. “You haven’t even taken me to dinner yet.”

I checked the inside and outside of his ruined jacket, and even the pockets of his jeans, but there was no phone.

“Might have fallen out when I was blasted. Or before that. Who knows?” J.B. murmured. He sounded like he was falling asleep.

That was bad. I knew enough about medicine to know that if he went to sleep now, he might never wake up.

“Beezle!” I shouted, heedless of the hour and my sleeping neighbors. “Beezle, come here now!”

I heard the scrape of a window against its frame, and looked up to see Beezle shooting out of the kitchen with a small first aid kit clutched in his claws.

“What’s the fire?” he asked, tossing me the kit.

“Go and get the portable phone from the house. J.B.’s barely holding it together and I need to call a Medi-Team for him.” I patted J.B.’s cheek and he grunted. “Don’t go to sleep.”

“I don’t know if the portable phone will work out here,” Beezle said doubtfully.

“Just get it, Beezle!” I snapped. “I don’t have time to debate with you.”

“This wouldn’t be necessary if he were here to do his job,” Beezle grumbled as he flew back toward the kitchen window.

I silently agreed with him. If Gabriel were here, he could have healed both me and J.B. without much effort. But unlike Beezle, I didn’t read any sinister implications in Gabriel’s absence. If he could be at my side, he would be. It was that simple. Never mind the bond between us; if Azazel found out that I came to harm because of Gabriel’s absence, he would grind Gabriel into small and bloody pieces.

Beezle came zooming out again with the phone. I snatched it from his hands and dialed the Medi-Team number. But when I held the receiver to my ears I heard nothing but the crackle of static.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

“I told you,” Beezle said.

It was hard to think. Blood flowed from the wounds at my back and arms, slow but unceasing. I tried to stand but found that I was too weak, and my knees slipped in the blood pooling on the peeling wood of the porch. My face slammed into the railing and I saw stars.

“Maddy, don’t try to move,” Beezle said, his voice alarmed. “I’ll get help.”

“From where?” I asked, holding my hand to the side of my face. I thought I’d heard something crack when my cheek hit the wood.

“I’ll get Azazel,” he said.

I had to think for a minute about why that was bad. “If you get Azazel and he comes here and finds Gabriel missing, he will kill him.”