“Why is all of this happening now? Why are monsters and demonic half brothers coming out of the woodwork just when you show up?” I said.
“An excellent question,” Beezle said, giving Gabriel a smug look. “It’s almost as if you led them here.”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes at Beezle. “You know full well, gargoyle, that I was sent here by Lord Azazel to protect Madeline. Perhaps he read the signs and knew that danger was imminent.”
“Or perhaps he manipulated it that way so that she would come running to him,” Beezle muttered.
“And why would he want that?” I asked, and tried not to let that long-ago hurt show. “He never wanted me before.”
“To Lord Azazel you are valued above all things,” Gabriel said.
“He has a funny way of showing it,” I said.
“There are many things you do not know about your father,” Gabriel said.
“Why don’t you enlighten me?” I said. “I’d like to know something about this . . . angel that gave me half his genetic material and then took off for parts unknown.”
“You should not speak of Lord Azazel in this manner,” Gabriel said, and his eyes were icy cold.
“Why not? To me he’s just another deadbeat dad,” I snapped back. It infuriated me that this stranger should know more of my father than I did.
“Not unlike your own father,” Beezle murmured maliciously to Gabriel.
“What about his father?” I asked. Underneath my curiosity about my father was an interest in Gabriel, who had demonstrated some powerful magic but carefully avoided all questions about his origins.
“My lineage is not at issue here,” Gabriel said firmly, and something passed between him and Beezle.
“What do you know, Beezle?” I said, frustrated beyond belief. I stood and paced across the room, away from Gabriel. He stood up and leaned against the countertop, his expression relaxed but his eyes tense. “Why won’t you tell me? I am sick of being in the dark.”
The gargoyle’s expression closed suddenly, as if he realized that his dislike of Gabriel had led him to say too much. Gabriel glared at Beezle, his lips white and furious. I looked between them, both of them closed-mouthed and tight-faced, and pretending that I wasn’t there and hadn’t heard a thing.
The fury that roared up inside me was so sudden I gasped. Just as had happened before, I felt magic crackle inside me, and when I spoke, there was a power in my voice that made them both turn and look at me with wary eyes.
“I . . . am . . . tired,” I said carefully, so they would understand. I could feel the magic jumping inside me, wanting to break free, to burn. “I am tired of being afraid and unsure, of having my mind and will taken from me.”
Gabriel had the grace to look slightly abashed, although he said nothing and still watched me with caution in his eyes.
“I am tired of having my ass kicked by all the freaky monsters coming out of the woodwork. But most of all, I am tired of being treated like a child. You both have information that I need, information that I need to survive. You both know more about the magic inside me than I do. You both insist on keeping things from me as if I have no right to know. I do have a right to know. You will not keep me ignorant anymore,” I said, and the command in my voice was apparent even to me. Electricity crackled in my fingertips. “You will tell me what I want to know. Everything.”
Gabriel still said nothing. He stood preternaturally still, as if he feared one small movement would set me off. Beezle fluttered near me, his grindstone voice trying to soothe. “Maddy, you don’t know what you’re asking ...”
“Do not treat me like a child,” I thundered, and the house actually shook. Glasses in the cabinet knocked together and I heard a few of them shatter. The magic inside me felt like a living thing, harsh and wild, and it wanted to come out. It wanted to burn, and it didn’t care who was in the way. A tiny part of me was frightened, frightened of the power inside me, and I wondered if I could control it. My skin felt stretched, barely able to contain what was inside me.
“Maddy,” Gabriel said, and his voice was so soft, so gentle. The voice of an angel. “Don’t.”
He hadn’t moved a centimeter. His hands were open at his sides, no threat to me.
“Don’t,” he said again, and the magic inside me stuttered and pulled back for a moment, confused. “You will hurt yourself. You will hurt Beezle. You would never be able to live with yourself if that happened.”
Beezle. The small part of me that was afraid remembered Beezle, not as an obstacle to information but as my friend. My only friend. My family. I didn’t want to hurt him, and the magic keened a little at that. It wanted to hurt. It wanted to burn.
“Beezle,” I said, breathing unevenly. The magic was held at bay, for the moment, but I could feel it straining and snapping like a dog on a leash. “Tell me who he is.”
7
GABRIEL LOOKED AT BEEZLE. I LOOKED FROM FACE TO face, and something passed between them. Gabriel still looked angry, and also vulnerable, and Beezle looked disappointed and tired. But there was resignation there, too, in both their faces. I had won. The magic dwindled inside me, down to a candle flicker, and waited.
“I have to go back a little,” Beezle said, apologetically.
“I don’t care how far you have to go back,” I said. “As long as when you’re done I know everything.”
“Be careful what you ask for,” Gabriel said, and his voice was silky and dangerous again. “It may not be knowledge that you want.”
“I may not want it,” I shot back, “but I have to have it. Like I said, I’m tired of getting beat up by things I don’t know and don’t understand.”
A gamut of emotions ran through his eyes, too fast for me to read, and ended with something that looked like regret. I didn’t know if he regretted not protecting me better, not telling me sooner, or that I was about to discover things he’d rather keep hidden. Probably it was a little of all three. But I did know that I couldn’t afford to feel badly about it. Whatever Beezle was about to tell me could save my life the next time that creature came hunting for me.
“Long ago,” Beezle intoned, and he sounded so stiff that I giggled. He glared at me and I pressed my lips into an appropriate imitation of solemnity.
“Long ago,” Beezle repeated, “before the Fall, a group of angels were sent to Earth to watch over humanity, and they were known as the Grigori.”
“Grigori,” I muttered, trying to remember. I looked at Gabriel. “Didn’t you say something about my father and the Grigori?”
He nodded his head, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. “Lord Azazel is chief of the Grigori, and Lord Lucifer’s right hand.”
“Ahem,” Beezle said. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
I mimed zipping my lips together and indicated that he should continue.
“Azazel is a Grigori, and so is Lucifer, and Focalor,” Beezle said. “Soon after they came to Earth, the Grigori became enchanted by the beauty of human women and began to lust after them. They lured the women to them by teaching humans forbidden things, such as the making of weapons of war, and the signs of the sun and the moon, and the resolving of enchantments. The Grigori took these women as their wives, and soon the women bore children, a race of giants called nephilim.
“The nephilim were true monsters. Each one killed its mother as it was born by clawing through her womb. Not one of them had the angels’ beauty. Each grew to more than eight feet tall, with clawed feet and fingers and great razor teeth. Each had some magic passed to it from its father, but the magic was always tainted and twisted inside it.”