“Beezle, if you finish that sentence, I will never buy popcorn again for the rest of my life.”
He snapped his jaws shut and crossed his arms, going into broody mode.
I walked very carefully down the sidewalk, intending to disappear into a nearby alley that ran underneath the El tracks and unobtrusively push out my wings. Ms. Greenwitch lived a few short blocks from the Western El stop, and a steady stream of late commuters flowed past as I shuffled my way down the street. Most of them appeared not to notice the gargoyle glaring from my shoulder, and the early-autumn darkness did a fair job of disguising my bruised face unless I passed directly beneath a streetlight.
A young woman and man, both of them in their late twenties, went by. They were dressed like young professionals, just off work. She carried the cardigan that matched her short-sleeved sweater over one arm, while he had a take-out bag in one hand and a leather messenger bag slung over the other shoulder. A bottle of wine protruded from the top of a slim paper bag that she had tucked inside her oversized tote. They looked tired but anticipatory, the way that people do when they’re almost home from work and they know they can put on their comfy socks and be with the one they love.
The two didn’t even notice Beezle and me as we passed. I felt a stab of jealousy, a tiny flutter in my stomach. I’d always accepted that it was my fate to be an Agent. I’d had no choice in the matter. I could do my duty kicking and screaming, but I would still have to do it all the same. And being alone, without a person with whom to share the wine and takeout, that was part of the package, too. There was no other way to be when you were an Agent. My mother had taught me that.
Of course, Mom had her little fling before you were born, didn’t she? an insidious voice whispered in my head.
I tried not to think about it, because if I thought about it too closely, I’d realize that I was angry with her. Angry with her for loving a fallen angel. Angry with her for not telling me about my father, for not preparing me for the day when demons would come knocking at my door, for not helping me learn what to do with the magic that was bound up inside me.
So I wasn’t going to think about it. I squared my shoulders and marched into the alley, and Beezle shifted on his perch and muttered, “What’s the matter with you all of a sudden?”
“Nothing,” I snapped as we passed beneath a streetlight and into a patch of darkness. No one could see me once my wings emerged, but there was no point in freaking out the nice commuters by disappearing from sight in front of them.
I closed my eyes, thinking of home, and as my wings unfurled I caught a whiff of burnt cinnamon. My eyes flew open just as Beezle cried, “Maddy!” and I saw Ramuell’s gaping maw open before me. I felt his hot breath scald my face and I shot upward in an explosion of black feathers before he could close his mouth around my head.
The monster roared and stood to his full height, slashing at my legs with his scarlet claws as I flew up. I managed to tug away, flapping my wings desperately and blasting him in the face with a blue ball of nightfire. Ramuell released me, howling and clawing at his eyes. I zipped out of the alley and realized that my left pant leg had ripped open. The inside of my leg burned where the claws had rent my flesh and blood was running into my left boot, soaking my sock. The burning acid ran up my leg, traveling through my bloodstream, contaminating everywhere it touched.
I arrowed toward home with desperate speed, looking once over my shoulder to see if the creature was following me. There was no sign of it. It had disappeared as cleanly as if it had never been there.
“What the flaming hell was that all about, Beezle?” I shouted. “How did it just appear out of nowhere? How come people weren’t screaming and yelling at the sight of it? It had to get into the alley from somewhere, and it wasn’t there when we went in—I’m sure of that.”
Beezle said nothing, just clung to my neck even tighter. The burning acid in my leg had spread to my hips, and my stomach, and my chest. I slowed my speed as I saw the familiar rooftop of my house. My lungs felt tight and my vision blurred.
I aimed for the kitchen window and was off by a hairs-breadth, slamming my shoulder into the window frame and tumbling end over end to land flat on my back. The breath whooshed out of my body as from a deflating balloon. Beezle had released me before my swan dive and now he fluttered above my face.
“Maddy, Maddy, are you all right? Your leg doesn’t look so good,” he said, and I could hear the anxiety in his voice.
I tried to focus on his face, to tell him that I was all right, but everything looked like it was covered in thick fog. My lips and tongue and throat felt numb, and in my pain-filled haze it seemed somehow that my blood was moving more slowly, that my heartbeat was winding down like a clockwork toy.
“Maddy, say something,” Beezle pleaded. I could feel his little clawed hands on my cheeks as he pressed his beak against my nose. “Maddy, please get up. Please speak to me.”
You never say please, I thought, but it was too much effort to say the words. It was hard to focus on Beezle’s cat eyes, so I let my eyelids drift closed.
“No, no, you wake up right now!” Beezle said, and I could feel his hands shaking me ineffectually. It seemed like his voice was at the other end of a long tunnel, pleading and angry at the same time. I wanted to pat him on the back but my hand wouldn’t move.
“What has happened here?” Another voice, silky and dangerous. Gabriel.
“Ramuell,” Beezle said. “He slashed her.”
Gabriel said nothing, but suddenly his hands were on my leg, pulling away the tatters of my jeans. I heard the sharp intake of his breath but it echoed oddly in my ears.
“You have done a very poor job, guardian,” he hissed, and I thought vaguely that he had never sounded as frightening as he did now. “I only hope that I am not too late.”
His arms went under my shoulders and knees, pulling me to his chest. I wanted to see his face, but I couldn’t open my eyes. I felt very far away, floating.
“And what of you, protector?” Beezle spat back. “Isn’t that why Azazel sent you here? To keep her safe?”
“Quiet,” he said, and I felt a strange warmth emanating from his hands. “The venom is everywhere now. I have only a little time and I need to concentrate.”
The warmth from his hands spread through his arms, and his chest, and it burned hotter and hotter. It was like standing too close to a furnace. The heat grew more intense, and it hurt. I wanted to scream but the noise wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Everywhere Gabriel touched me, the heat touched me, too, and it was like wildfire in my veins, burning away the acid.
And then his mouth was on me, too, at my throat, and my cheeks, and on my eyelids. And where his lips moved he left a trail of flames behind. He whispered against my mouth, “You have to live,” and then he was kissing me, and his kiss was like the heart of the sun. The fire careened in my veins, scorching, burning me clean and whole. I felt my legs again, and my arms. Then my lungs inhaled and exhaled, and my heart resumed its regular beat.
The heat subsided, and my eyes flew open. Gabriel’s mouth whispered across mine once more, and then he pulled away, and he smiled. His dark eyes were lit by starshine, and I felt I was falling again into the heart of the universe. Not by some spell of Gabriel’s, but by my own foolish wants and needs. He had kissed me to save me—this much I understood. But my heart, my very lonely heart, ached for what I had never known before.
Gabriel must have seen something in my own eyes. His smile faded and his expression flickered, unreadable, and then he carefully released me, placing me in a sitting position on the floor. His hand rested against the small of my back, making sure that I didn’t fall backward again.