Christina Henry - Black City

But I’d had no choice. I was never given any choice. And now, for this, everyone was leaving me. Even Beezle.

“Go, then,” I said, my voice hard. “Go with Samiel. He’s your favorite person anyway.”

“I didn’t say…” Beezle began.

“Go!” I said, and I grabbed the nearest thing at hand and threw it at him. It was a coffee cup, and it smashed into the counter a few inches from Beezle. The handle broke off.

I stared at it, stricken. Not because I’d just thrown a coffee mug at Beezle, although that was bad enough. But because I’d thrown the last coffee mug that Gabriel had used. The mug that had sat, untouched, in the dish drain since the morning he’d died. I’d almost bitten Samiel’s head off once when he tried to put it back in the cupboard.

Beezle said nothing. I couldn’t read the expression on his face.

Fight for me, I thought. It was a little girl’s voice in my head, the little girl who’d always wanted to be first to her mother but always came in second. The little girl who’d dreamed of a daddy to love her, a daddy who never arrived. Show me I matter. Show me you care enough to stay.

But he didn’t. He pushed the half-eaten bag of pretzels to one side, made a great show of dusting crumbs off his claws, and flew out the kitchen window without another word.

NATHANIEL STOOD IN THE CORNER OF THE KITCHEN, near the hall. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t tried to intervene.

I didn’t look at him. My throat was tight. I thought that if he gave me one kind word at that moment, I would crumple to the floor and never get up again.

“I would comfort you,” Nathaniel said carefully, “but I sense that is precisely what you do not want.”

“You sense correctly,” I said. I was proud of the fact that my voice wobbled only a little. “You know, you don’t have to stay, either. All the other rats are leaving the sinking ship. You should get out while you still can.”

“Madeline. I would not leave you. Now more than ever we are two of a kind. Could any of the others understand your magic, your burdens, as well as I?”

“No,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t put you under any obligation to me.”

“It is my choice.”

It was astounding that the last person I’d ever expected to stand by me was the only person left with me now that my life was going to hell in a handbasket.

When I’d first met Nathaniel I thought he would protect himself at any cost. I thought if he had a chance to keep out of personal danger, he would take it. I thought he would never be the kind of man who stood in front of me, sword raised, ready to keep me from harm.

Yet Beezle was gone. Samiel was gone. Gabriel was dead. And Nathaniel was still here. He was choosing to be here.

“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t say the other thing I was thinking. I could love you. Maybe. Someday. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

I didn’t embrace him, or give him one last longing look. I flew out the window, because I needed to forget about those things that tethered me to life. I was going to a place of the dead, and if I longed too much for life, then I wouldn’t be able to do it.

I flew up and up and up, soaring above the city, into the place where the atmosphere became thin. The lack of oxygen might have bothered me before, but not today. My body seemed to adjust as needed, without direction from me.

I kept going, past the clouds, past where the blue sky touched the dark of space. Still I went up, and beyond, and I passed into a place on the edge of starlight. There, time moved at a different speed.

I could see all of the worlds beneath me, all the worlds that had ever been and ever were and ever would be. I did not have to search for the correct place. Evangeline’s spirit called me, a flare of red like a homing beacon. I sensed her in my head, drawing me to her just as I had drawn the vampires to me.

Beneath me was the land of the dead—or one of them, anyway. My newfound knowledge told me that all of the dead of history were scattered throughout many worlds. It was the choice of those worlds that a soul was given when it passed through the Door.

My descent began, past the blazing sun of this world, through the empty air. The landscape was as stark as it had been in my dreams. Everywhere I looked there was white sand, bleached bone, gray rock.

I alighted on the same flat stone and looked around, shielding my eyes from the sun’s glare. One moment she wasn’t there. The next moment she was.

She stood before me in the same gray gown she had worn in my vision. The small round bulge of her belly was just visible when the wind brushed her dress against her body. Her hair fluttered in the wind, black corkscrew curls, and I had the disturbing realization that my hair was exactly like hers.

“I knew he would send you for me,” Evangeline said with a self-satisfied expression.

“You know, you had the choice of all the worlds,” I said, ignoring her jibe. “Why did you pick this barren shithole?”

The smirk dropped from her face. “This land is very like the place where I was raised.”

“Oh, you mean the nuclear wasteland,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What, you missed the radiation poisoning?”

“Your judgment means nothing,” Evangeline spat. “I will leave this land soon, in any case. Lucifer is defying the universe for me, for our child, just as I knew he would.”

“Except that he’s not defying anything,” I said. “Lucifer isn’t here. I am.”

“So?” she challenged.

“He doesn’t love you for your brains, does he? Obviously, he isn’t here because you are not vital enough for him to risk his own precious self, even with that monster in your belly,” I said.

Her face fell for a moment; then she visibly gathered herself. “Lucifer is far too important to endanger his physical being. I understand why he sent you in his stead. If he were destroyed, the very fabric of the universe would come undone. You, however, are expendable.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“You are in no position to sneer at me, as you are present, acting upon his orders,” she said.

“I am here,” I admitted. “But it’s not a done deal. I could leave you.”

Evangeline stared at me. “You cannot. You must do as Lucifer bids.”

“No, I must not. I’m human. We’ve got this thing called free will.”

“If you do not take me willingly, then Lucifer will command you to as Hound of the Hunt,” she said triumphantly.

“I could still drop you somewhere along the way,” I said casually.

Her eyes widened. Apparently my reputation as a loose cannon was potent enough that she took my threat seriously.

“Lucifer would kill you if you caused the death of his child,” she said.

“And he’ll kill you if you cause the death of mine,” I said, finally coming around to the point. I wanted to make sure that she knew I was not to be trifled with. “I don’t see you as a threat. But you obviously see me as one. So don’t get any ideas about trying to take me or my kid out just so you can be number one with Lucifer.”

“No one except my child will be Lucifer’s heir,” Evangeline hissed.

“That’s not up to you,” I said. “But I’ll tell you this—I’ve already killed two of Lucifer’s children, and I’m still up and walking around. Don’t think I’ll hesitate to take out your little monster if I have to. If you try to harm my child, then you will not live to see another dawn.”

We stood there, face-to-face under the blazing sun in a desert of white sand, and took each other’s measure. Evangeline blinked first.

“You will not threaten me,” she said haughtily, drawing her bravado around her like a cloak. “I will be Lucifer’s queen.”