Black Lament (17 page)

“Uh-uh,” I said, not wanting the faeries to use my association with Lucifer as a new excuse to try to kill me. “I’m not representing anyone but me, and I’ve disavowed Azazel as my father.”

“Very well,” Puck said. “Madeline Black, then, representative of no one except herself. The rules of combat are these—there shall be no use of magic to harm one another within the ring. Combatants may use physical weapons only, with no assistance from outside the ring. There shall be no mercy offered and none given. This is a fight to the death. If these rules are broken by one combatant, then they no longer apply to the other. Begin!”

Puck spun a quarter turn and disappeared, reappearing beside Nathaniel and Beezle at one outside corner of the ring.

Oberon gave a wild war cry and charged me with his blade out to strike. I parried his blow quickly and slashed under his arms toward his stomach.

As quick as lightning, Oberon danced away from me, the tip of my blade never even coming close to his skin. I spun back to face him just as his sword slashed down at the shoulder of my sword arm.

I was fast, but not fast enough. The sword bit through my thin T-shirt and into the muscle just under the joint. As the sword cut me I felt a little sting of pain in the back of my neck. I clamped my teeth together so as not to cry out as he slid the blade out again. I would not give Oberon the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt me.

I turned on him more aggressively, hacking at whatever I could reach with Lucifer’s sword. It seemed he was always just a little faster, just a hairbreadth farther away than I thought.

A dull headache started to pound behind my eyes as my temper rose and I had to suppress my magic. All that power careened around inside me, looking for an outlet, and it took half my concentration just to keep it under control.

Blood dripped down my arm and made my hands slippery on the grip. My shoulder throbbed every time I swung the sword at the faerie king. I was starting to feel woozy. I hadn’t considered that it would be so difficult to defeat Oberon without magic. I never realized what a crutch my power had become. If something annoyed me, I just blasted it out of the way. I couldn’t do that now.

Oberon had a self-satisfied look on his face. He knew he was winning, and as he feinted and parried and did everything except dance a little jig, I got angrier and angrier.

And, as happened sometimes when I got angry, I suddenly saw what was before me with complete clarity.

Oberon had cheated.

“You cheated,” I said loudly, blocking his sword once more.

“Come, now, Agent Black,” Oberon said smugly. “We will have none of that. If you lose this battle, it will be because of your own incompetence.”

“Or because,” I said, and it was getting hard to speak, “you poisoned me.”

There was a gasp from the watching crowd as I pulled the tiny needle from the back of my neck. I’d felt something sting me when Oberon had cut me in the shoulder, but I’d assumed it was sympathetic pain from the muscle that connected to the joint.

“Someone, probably your queen, shot me in the neck with this when you cut me,” I said, slowly but clearly. “That means, I think, that the rules are forfeit.”

I looked at Puck, who nodded, his eyes no longer merry.

Oberon had dropped his blade to his side, the smug look replaced by calculation.

“And if the rules are forfeit,” I said, and stepped forward before he could think, laying my open palm over his heart, “then I can use magic.”

11

“STOP HER!” TITANIA CRIED.

Oberon’s eyes widened as all the pent-up magic inside me released into his body. I had just enough will left to focus that power so that it didn’t spill over onto everyone in the court.

A massive stream poured from my hand into Oberon. There was a tremendous flash of light, and for a moment it seemed the universe froze. It took everything I had to keep standing, to give the illusion of strength. The poison worked its way into my blood. I felt it killing me by inches.

There was an explosion of magic, and the shock wave that pulsed out of Oberon’s body had enough force to knock down everyone in the immediate vicinity, including me. The magic that was bound to Oberon dissipated into the ether. He was finished.

I struggled to my feet, swaying as the poison made me dizzy. Nathaniel climbed over the ropes at the edge of the ring and came to my side, his arm propping me up. Beezle hovered worriedly.

I felt a subtle warming as Nathaniel pressed his hand over the wound in my shoulder, healing me. The heat ran through my body, burning out the poison, closing all my existing wounds. The child inside me fluttered as Nathaniel’s power touched it.

“Thank you,” I murmured.

Nathaniel brushed his hand over my cheek. “The claw marks from the Hob still remain. You have quite a dashing scar now.”

Beezle landed on my shoulder, squeezing me with his claws. “How are we going to get out of this one?”

All around us the courtiers were murmuring and coming to their feet. Everyone looked around for Oberon, and when they didn’t see him there was a collective gasp. Then Titania screamed.

“Get her! Kill her! Avenge your lord!”

There was a clatter of armor as several soldiers climbed into the ring. I spun toward them, ready to defend myself, the sword in one hand, my other hand fisted.

But Puck stood in the way, and none of the soldiers seemed inclined to knock him over. I wondered just what his position was in the court. “My lady, you have already violated the rules of combat by interfering in the fight. Do not worsen your position by ignoring the pact that you made with Madeline Black.”

“What care I for that agreement when she has killed my lord?” Titania said, her face a mask of grief and anger. “I am under no obligation to keep to the terms that she made with Oberon.”

“I did not kill your lord,” I said softly, but my voice carried.

“Then where is he?” Titania asked.

I held up my closed fist, and then opened my palm. In the center of my hand lay a tiny, sleeping faerie, the size of a housefly.

Titania put her hand to her mouth. “What have you done?”

“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “So there is no blood price, and no vengeance to be had.”

All I’d done was remove the eons of glamour and magic that Oberon had used to cloak himself, and reverted him back to his original form.

And his original form had just the smallest fraction of magic compared to the illusion he’d built up over time. It would take him centuries to return to the form he’d used to try to kill me.

“Madeline Black followed the rules of trial by combat as set forth,” Puck said. “By your own agreement, you are permitted no vengeance, whatever she has done.”

“Where lies your loyalty, Puck?” Titania asked, her eyes narrowed. “With your queen, or with this child of Lucifer?”

“My loyalty lies with my queen, so long as my queen is loyal to her word,” Puck replied.

“You would play the jester now, when your own lord has been brought low?” Titania said.

“If the jester is a truth teller, then that is what I shall play for you. My queen, do not jeopardize your court. Do not invite Lucifer’s wrath upon us,” Puck said.

The doors to the throne room opened, and everyone in court turned toward the sound.

Silhouetted in the sunshine that poured through the door was a tall, broad-shouldered man carrying a bow and arrows.

“Bendith!” Titania cried.

“Mother?” he asked, confusion evident in his voice. “What is happening?”

Bendith stepped into the throne room and his face was fully revealed.

I sucked in my breath, unable to disguise my shock. This was undoubtedly Titania’s son. He looked exactly like Titania, except for one feature.

His eyes were the exact same merry blue as Puck’s.

No wonder rumors had persisted doubting Oberon’s paternity. With eyes like that there could be no doubt who had fathered the heir to the court.

Everyone watched Bendith as he approached his mother. Everyone except for Puck, who was watching me. He nodded at me when I looked back at him, acknowledging the truth that must have been on my face.

“Mother, what has happened?” Bendith asked again. “Why is the combat ring set? Where is Father?”

Titania fell into her son’s arms with a dramatic flourish. She wept on his shoulder as he patted her back in bewilderment. It was so patently an act that I could hardly believe Bendith bought it.

“That… creature,” she said, pointing a manicured fingernail at me. “She has diminished your father.”

“Diminished?” he said, a crease forming between his brows. He was handsome, but there didn’t seem to be a lot going on upstairs.

Puck held out his hand to me while Titania was distracted by Bendith. I placed Oberon gently in his palm.

As my hand brushed against his, he replaced Oberon with something sharp and hard.

“You may use that for safe passage when the time comes,” he said, soft and quick so no one else could hear.

I carefully opened my palm and saw the glint of a small blue jewel there.

“How?” I whispered.

“There’s no place like home,” Puck said, and winked.

During this exchange Titania and Bendith had continued their conversation in an undertone. Now Bendith stood and faced me, nocking an arrow in his bow.

“Stand aside, Puck,” Bendith said. “I will take vengeance for my father.”

Puck did not move.

“I did not kill your father,” I said to Bendith.

“Yes, and for this you have violated the rules of the trial. This combat was proclaimed to end only with death,” he said.

Titania smiled behind him, and I knew who had planted this idea in Bendith’s head.

“So you would kill me for showing mercy?” I asked.

“You agreed to show none,” Bendith said.

“Your father and mother violated the rules of combat first, so they no longer applied to me,” I said.

Bendith hesitated, lowering his arrow a fraction.

“Do not heed the words of a child of the Deceiver,” Titania said. She was crafty, much craftier than I had thought. She knew exactly how to twist her son in knots so that she would get her way. “Kill her and take revenge for our family.”

“Oh, I’ve had enough of this,” I said, stepping around Puck and blasting Bendith in the face with my power.

It was just a little knockdown magic, not enough to harm him permanently, but Titania started yelling like I’d torn his arms off.

I grabbed Nathaniel by the hand, made sure Beezle was secure, and squeezed the jewel that Puck had given me.

“There’s no place like home,” I whispered.

And a second later, we were there, appearing in the dining room.

We shocked the hell out of Jude and Samiel, who were playing checkers at the dining room table. Samiel’s eyes widened when we appeared. Jude knocked over his chair in his haste to stand up and face us, obviously thinking we might be some kind of threat.

I dropped Nathaniel’s hand and rubbed my forehead. “Well, that did not go as I’d intended at all.”

Jude looked at me critically. “You’re covered in blood. Is any of it yours?”

“Some, but I’m okay,” I said. “I want a shower. And food.”

“And then you’ll tell us what happened,” Jude said.

“Beezle can fill you in,” I said, dropping my sword on the side table as I walked down the hall to the bathroom.

“Information comes with a price,” I heard Beezle say. “How many doughnuts will you give me if I tell you what happened?”

Jude growled in response and I laughed out loud as I shut the door. When I saw myself in the mirror I sobered.

I was covered in blood, and my cute new haircut stuck up all over the place. The gash in the shoulder of my T-shirt was huge, an indication of just how bad that cut had been before Nathaniel had healed it. The four claw marks the Hob had given me had hardened into white scars that ran from my eye to my chin on my left cheek. My eyes were hard. I looked like someone who possessed no mercy. And I was a little afraid that was what I was becoming.

There would be consequences for my actions in the faerie court. I knew it. Titania wouldn’t leave me alone now that I had diminished Oberon. No matter what the outcome of that fight, they had no intention of letting me live. I knew that now. Faeries loved loopholes, and you could bet that Titania was finding one in our pact at that very moment.

She would never stop hunting me.

How had this escalated so quickly? I’d started out just wanting to get through a simple diplomatic mission to Amarantha’s court, and now I was in a blood feud with the high queen of Faerie. When I looked back on the choices I’d made I didn’t see any other way for me to have survived. At every turn Amarantha, then Titania and Oberon, had pushed me, provoked me and tried to squash me beneath their heels.

“What should I have done?” I asked the girl in the mirror. “What could I have done differently?”

I didn’t have an answer, so I pulled off my bloody clothes and climbed in the shower. They had tried to kill me, over and over. Over and over I had defended myself, and I had tried to negotiate for a cessation of hostilities.

None of them had been interested in peace.

I’d had to kill Amarantha. I’d diminished Oberon.

Sooner or later I’d have to take care of Titania, too. And then her son would come after me, or someone else.

It would never end, not unless every last faerie was wiped from the earth.

I wondered if that was what Lucifer had in mind all along. To use me as his sword and shield, knowing that I would protect my child.

For when I thought about my baby I knew that I could and would slaughter every last denizen of Faerie if that was what it took to keep him safe.

It was frightening to think of myself that way, as a weapon without mercy. But it was also true. I knew that under the right circumstances that was what I could become.

But I didn’t want it to come to that. I didn’t want to spend my life always looking over my shoulder. And I especially was not interested in doing anything that might serve Lucifer’s purpose.

I sighed. There was nothing I could do at the moment except wait and see what happened. And call J.B., who was not going to be happy with me at all.