Christina Henry: Black Howl

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.

“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Beezle asked belligerently.

“Quiet,” I said, leaning forward.

I brushed away some dirt and frost with the three remaining fingers of my left hand. Samiel had cut off the ring and pinkie fingers before we’d come to an understanding. Lucifer had told me the missing digits would grow back but so far I didn’t detect anything exciting happening on that front.

“Look.” I pointed to the same sigil I’d seen earlier, a circle with a small V on top. “I found this in the clearing where the pack was attacked,” I said. “It was inside the footprint of a demon.”

“I’ve never seen a demon’s mark like that before,” Beezle said.

That was saying something. Beezle is pretty much an encyclopedia of things that go bump in the night, and he knows the arcana of the fallen like he knows all the flavors at Dunkin’ Donuts. If he didn’t recognize the mark, then it was something new. And my recent experience with the fallen had taught me that anything new was something to dread.

Gabriel leaned over my shoulder and I smelled a whiff of cinnamon, the scent that I associated with an angelic being using their powers.

“It is a holding place for a portal,” Gabriel announced.

“What is that?” I said, standing up. Gabriel took an immediate step back so that he wouldn’t brush up against me. I ignored the little pulse of hurt that accompanied his action and turned around.

“You would think of it, hmm, perhaps like a button to open an elevator?” Gabriel said. “The magic for the portal is embedded inside this symbol. The demons’ master would have given them a key that could activate the sigil and open the portal.”

Jude pushed forward, shouldering Gabriel and me out of his way. He glared at the sigil like he could open it with his force of will.

“Are you saying that we just need to open this little thing and we can find Wade and the rest of the pack?” Jude said. “The demons went through here?”

“It is possible that the demons took another portal elsewhere once they exited this one,” Nathaniel said. “However, they certainly left the forest this way.”

“Then open it,” Jude said.

“Gabriel just explained that you need a key, you numbskull,” Beezle said. “How are we supposed to get it open without a key?”

Jude turned on us with furious eyes. “I did not prostrate myself before the granddaughter of my enemy so that we could stand around in the forest and stare at the only way I have of getting to my pack.”

“Who prostrated?” I mumbled. Jude had come to me reluctantly and his attitude had hardly recommended him. But I was trying to give him a pass because he was obviously in a tremendous amount of distress over the loss of Wade and the cubs.

“Find a way,” he said.

“Do not speak to Madeline in that fashion,” Nathaniel said. I was a little surprised that he’d stepped forward so readily to defend me. Nathaniel, like Lucifer, generally likes to appear above the fray.

Jude whirled and turned on him, his fists clenched. “I’ll speak to her how I please. You’re not free and clear on this as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me what to do.”

“Nathaniel is the one who found the sigil for us,” I pointed out. “We didn’t have a clue to go on before that.”

“Yes, and isn’t it convenient that he managed to discover something so small in a forest this size,” Jude sneered.

I glanced at Nathaniel, momentarily unsure. It was true that I didn’t think of Nathaniel as trustworthy. I considered him an angel who would always put his own desires first, and those desires were generally not compatible with anyone who wasn’t completely and totally preoccupied with status in the courts.