The air was filled with the light of the sun, a light like a nuclear weapon exploding. Four sets of arms flew up in the air to block that light, to attempt in vain to hide from it.
The Red Shoes fell to the ground.
I tamped down the magic that flowed crazily in my blood now, put it back in a box for another day. That power was too intoxicating—and too close to Lucifer for my liking. The light in the room returned to normal.
Beezle poked his head out. “So you managed to melt them all without setting the room on fire. Congratulations.”
“Yeah,” I said, a little breathless. I stared at the Red Shoes. They could be mine. I could be something great and terrible with those shoes. My enemies would suffer like none had suffered before.
I shook my head from side to side, pushing away the spell. Apparently the shoes had decided that since I wasn’t willing to put them on, they would tempt me another way.
It was disturbing to think of a pair of red ballet slippers with something like sentient thought.
“Are we taking those home?” Beezle asked, giving me a beady-eyed look that told me he’d guessed some of what had passed through my mind.
“Yes,” I said. “They’re what I came for.”
I looked around for something to cover my hands so I could carry the slippers. There was an empty plastic bag attached to one of the bags that must have belonged to the witches. She probably had a dog.
Had a dog. I’d just killed her, and she would never go home to her dog again.
My breath came in sharp gasps suddenly, my heart pounding. I’d killed a human. Three humans, as a matter of fact.
Beezle clambered out of my pocket and up to my face. He put his little clawed hands on my cheeks.
“They were going to kill you,” he said.
“Yes, I know,” I said.
“You had no choice,” he said.
I nodded, swallowing the tears that threatened to spill over.
“You’re still yourself. You’re still Maddy Black,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, getting hold of myself. “Okay.”
I picked up the slippers carefully with the plastic bag and wrapped it around the shoes. I jammed the shoes deep in my pocket. Their proximity made me feel a little sick. Then I picked up my sword and went to the elevator.
The giant whatever that had knocked me in the head rumbled out of the bedroom. He looked sort of like a troll, big and lumpy and gray.
He looked at me, then at the ash that remained of his master.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” Beezle said.
The troll turned around and went back to the bedroom.
The elevator door opened, and I went home.
I went straight to my bedroom, took out an empty shoe box from underneath the bed, and placed the plastic-wrapped slippers inside. Then I tucked the box into an old suitcase that I never used because I never went anywhere and put the suitcase in the back of my closet. The menacing aura around the shoes was hidden from me, and the low thrum of nausea subsided. I went back downstairs to wait. Beezle was already camped out in the middle of the living room couch, watching an infomercial for some kind of ab machine. A giant bowl of potato chips sat next to him on the cushion.
I sat on the front porch in the starlight, the sky bleeding midnight blue around the edges as the sun rose, and I waited. I knew he was coming. I could feel him. The tattoo on my palm wriggled in anticipation.
And suddenly he was there, golden blond hair gleaming in the light from the streetlamps, hands tucked in the pockets of the long coat that hid his wings from mortal view. He was older than the moon and the sun, but he looked ten years younger than me. The only thing that gave him away was the ancient secrets in his eyes. He joined me on the porch, companionably slinging an arm around my shoulders.
“I hear tell that you have managed to quash another threat to my kingdom,” Lucifer said.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how you hear these things so fast. Do you have someone following me with a camera?”
“Perhaps I have a crystal ball,” he said.
“Perhaps you do,” I replied. I took a deep breath, girding myself for what was to come. I’d already decided as soon as I’d touched the shoes. Now I just needed to follow through.
“And I also understand that you have obtained the object which I was seeking,” he said.
“How about this?” I said slowly. “Finders keepers.”
Lucifer looked at me steadily. “You are not in a position to keep those shoes from me should I decide that I wish to take them from you.”
I was scared. Of course I was scared. Lucifer Morningstar, the first of the fallen, was just about the biggest and baddest thing going. As far as I could tell, the only thing stopping him from ripping me into tiny little pieces of confetti was his attachment to anyone of his bloodline, no matter how distant. But there was no way Lucifer could have good intentions for the Red Shoes. And Beezle kept telling me that Lucifer respected strength. So I gazed just as steadily back at him, and hoped he couldn’t see my fear.
“I can’t let you take them,” I said.
“And what will you do with them?” Lucifer asked. “How will you keep them safe? Once word gets about that you have the shoes in your possession, there will be creatures aplenty coming to claim their power.”
“I’m counting on two things to stop them from bothering me,” I said.
Lucifer looked amused. “And those two things are?”
“Your reputation. And mine,” I said. I might not be the first of the fallen, but there were lots of rumors about me, and I’d already proved more than once that I was no pushover.
“So you are willing to claim me if it’s convenient to your purpose, and otherwise you would disdain my offer?” Lucifer asked.
He’d implied more than once that he wanted me to be his heir, but I wasn’t interested in being mistress of all evil.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” I said. “I keep the shoes, and if anyone tries to take them from me I’ll just remind them who I am. And who you are.”
Lucifer laughed suddenly, his eyes sparkling. You could see when he laughed like that how he managed to tempt so many, to charm good people onto a path strewn with thorns.
“Very well,” my great-grandfather said. “Let us say that you will keep the shoes for me, then. For a little while.”
That was probably the best deal I was going to get. The shoes were out of Lucifer’s hands for the time being. Maybe, if I was very lucky, he would forget about them.
Or maybe not. Lucifer had been alive for a long time and he seemed to remember everything.
Still, it was a victory of sorts.
Lucifer rose and stretched, turned his face toward the east and the rising sun.
“You may find that those shoes will be useful to you someday, granddaughter,” Lucifer said.
I thought of the sick craving I’d felt when I’d first seen the shoes, and the palpable evil that surrounded them. I thought of dancing until you died, a puppet controlled by a will that was not your own. I don’t think I’d wish that fate on my worst enemy.
“Nah,” I said. “Red isn’t really my color.”
SNAKESKIN
BY ROB THURMAN
These boots weren’t made for talking.
This story, while part of the Trickster series, is a ten-year prequel and introduces several beloved secondary characters such as Zeke and Griffin. Enjoy.
There’re all sorts of sayings about shoes. “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” “It’s no use carrying an umbrella if your shoes are leaking.” The last you don’t hear much unless you travel, but it is as wise as the others—worth remembering. But on and on it goes. Full of good intentions, these kinds of sayings are. They’re something to guide people who have no common sense or thoughts of their own, my mama liked to point out. My mama—well, I’d long stopped fighting it—my mama was rarely wrong. Sometimes a tad misdirected, but wrong? I can’t say that she was.