They didn’t keep me waiting long. A few minutes after I’d called, three burly guys who looked like Navy SEALs came flying in. They all wore black shirts and black cargo pants and had the unsmiling look of military men on duty.
“Agent Black? We’ll take it from here.”
I stepped back to let them do their thing. The leader of the squad approached the ghost with his hands in the air, indicating that he meant no harm. The ghost had gone back to walking into the wall over and over again.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. J.B. stood there, glaring.
“What’s up with your ghost, Black?”
J.B. had a thing for me, and if I didn’t have a whole lot of unsettled lust for Gabriel, I might have had a thing for J.B., too, because he was pretty much as hot as it gets. Six foot plus, body of a runner, green eyes, black hair that sticks up in every direction because he spends a lot of time tugging at it.
Unfortunately, he acts like a stick-in-the-mud most of the time. Also, he was presently pissed at me because his mother had put a spell on him to make him act lovey-dovey toward me—part of her master plan of getting a child from Lucifer’s bloodline into her own bloodline. I didn’t know why this was my fault, but once the spell was broken, he’d decided to take out his mother issues on me.
“It’s not my ghost, Bennett,” I said, trying to control my anger. “I found it acting like this.”
“This is the fourteenth one this week,” he said, his eyes troubled. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”
The ghost screamed, and I turned back to see that one of the response team guys had wrapped his arms around the ghost’s to restrain him. Another member of the team pulled out a small black device that looked a lot like a remote and pointed it at the ghost’s eyes. A laser sight appeared on the bridge of the soul’s nose.
The ghost struggled in the Agent’s grip, his cries louder and more frantic. “Can’t stop—KEEP GOING—SORRY RED—I AM THE SCREAM—I AM THE SCREAM—I AM THE SCREAM!”
The other Agent pressed a button on the remote. It didn’t seem like anything had happened, but the ghost abruptly went limp in the Agent’s arms. One of the other guys stepped forward with a binding rope.
“How could fourteen ghosts end up like this in one week? Who was supposed to do their pickups?” I wondered aloud.
J.B. was silent behind me. I turned to face him and saw that his jaw was clenched.
“What?” I said.
He looked like he was struggling with some decision; then finally he said, “They weren’t scheduled.”
“Fourteen unscheduled deaths in one week? And they all ended up like this?” I looked at him with dawning comprehension. “You think it has something to do with the fallen.”
“Doesn’t it usually?” he said. “Every time something weird and freaky has happened around here in the last few months it’s come back to Lucifer. And the weird and the freaky have happened more frequently since you acknowledged your bloodline and came into your powers.”
“And so you think I might have something to do with it?” I said. “You know, you accused me of murder once and you looked pretty stupid after when you found out that I hadn’t been lying about Ramuell.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just saying that you are Lucifer’s child.”
“I’m not Lucifer’s child,” I said. I could feel my magic pulsing underneath my skin—never a good sign. Even though I had made great leaps and bounds in controlling my powers, I still was at the mercy of my emotions.
“Really?” he said, with a pointed glance at my right hand.
My right palm was covered with what looked like a henna tattoo of an uncoiling snake. Unfortunately, the tattooing had not been voluntary. I’d been branded by Lucifer’s sword, and I wasn’t happy about it.
I shook my head at J.B. “I’m Azazel’s child, and my heritage has nothing to do with this in any case. I don’t know what’s causing this.”
“Maybe I should just have you followed,” J.B. said thoughtfully. “You’ll probably stumble onto the solution accidentally. That seems to happen a lot.”
“I resent the implication that I’m Three-Stooging my way through life. I am the only person who’s ever survived the Maze,” I snapped. “And may I remind you that you should look to your own backyard before you start making wild accusations.”
“You think my mother has something to do with this?” J.B. snorted. “She’d never be able to keep a secret this big from the rest of the faerie court.”
“She managed to keep the fact that she wanted a child of Lucifer’s bloodline secret,” I reminded him.
“What motivation would she have for murdering mortals and leaving them like this?” J.B. said.
“What motivation did she have for trying to have me raped and killed?” I said, and as soon as I said it I was sorry. It hung in the air between us like a living thing.
As if by speaking it aloud, my memories—the ones that I tried so hard to suppress over the last month—came rushing back.
The Maze—a swarm of demons, a giant spider, my demon half brother trying to destroy me utterly.
Nathaniel’s face possessed by rage, Nathaniel’s hands holding me down.
Gabriel turning away from me in disgust.
“It wasn’t real,” I muttered to myself. My face was covered in sweat, and a blast of cold January air made me shiver.
“Maddy…” J.B. said, and he lifted his hand toward me.
“No,” I said, and backed away, trying to get myself under control, trying to forget again. “I’m not doing this with you. You can’t be my friend when you feel like it and shout at me the rest of the time. Whatever your mother did, I had nothing to do with it, and I suffered far worse at her hand than you did. You were embarrassed by a love spell. She tried to break me, my heart, my mind, my body.”
“But she couldn’t,” J.B. said, and his eyes were hard to read.
“She couldn’t,” I agreed. “And I won’t let you or anyone else do it, either.”
Then I turned and flew away, and he didn’t try to follow me.
I came in the back door so I saw the mess in the kitchen first. Apparently Beezle and Samiel had made waffles, because the counter was covered in batter and the sink was full of dirty dishes. The score from a movie swelled in the living room and drifted down the hall to where I stood with my coat in one hand and my gloves in the other.
“Seriously?” I said, and then my voice got louder. I tossed my stuff on a chair and strode down the hall. “Seriously? Beezle, you are way too old for this shit.”
I stopped when I got to the living room. Samiel and Beezle were sitting on the couch. Both of them had tears running down their faces.
“Gods above and below. What happened?” I said, rushing to Beezle and picking him up. “Did somebody die?”
He pointed wordlessly at the screen. I glanced at it, then back at Beezle.
“E.T.?” I said.
Beezle sniffled, nodding. Samiel blew his nose with a tissue.
“You do know it’s make-believe, right?”
Beezle glared up at me. “If you don’t cry during E.T., you are a robot. No human could get through this movie without shedding a few tears.”
“Far be it from me to point out that neither of you are actually human,” I said. “When you’ve wiped your face you can clean up the mess in the kitchen. I’d like to have breakfast in a batter-free zone.”
Samiel looked at me and signed, He made me do it.
I signed back, You don’t have to listen to him.