Black Spring (2 page)

“She kicked you out and now you’re here looking for a roof over your head?” I asked, getting annoyed again.

No,
Samiel signed, shaking his head.
It’s not like that. We broke up because I wanted to come here, to make amends.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Chloe didn’t agree.”

You could say that,
Samiel said, grinning.

I could imagine how that argument went. Chloe has an extremely strong personality. And once she’s decided something, no force in the universe could make her change her mind.

“What’s the heaviest thing she threw at your head?” I asked.

A cast-iron frying pan.

“Seriously? A little cliché, that,” I said.

She had just finished cooking breakfast,
he signed.
I thought it would be a safe time to raise the subject since her stomach was full.

“According to Beezle her stomach is never full,” I said.

Beezle should talk.

And just like that, it was all right. I didn’t want to be angry at Samiel. I had enough legitimate enemies without spurning an apologetic friend just to soothe my pride. I stepped forward and he put his arms around me. I felt safe and warm there. He leaned back, his hands on my shoulders for a moment, and looked me up and down, shaking his head.

“Don’t say anything about my weight,” I warned. “Don’t say it looks like I swallowed a basketball, or that it looks like I’m about to pop, or ask me if I’m having twins.”

Samiel shook his head.
I was just going to say you look tired.

“And don’t say that either,” I said. “When speaking to a pregnant woman, only compliments should flow from your lips. ‘You look great’ is an excellent fallback.”

Even if it’s not true?

“Especially if it’s not true. I already feel like a whale on two legs. I don’t need anybody to tell me I look like one.” I sighed. “I have to clean up after the dogs. Why don’t you stay here for a minute and get to know them?”

Samiel crouched warily before the three Retrievers, holding his hand out for them to sniff. I went away to collect the dogs’ leavings, confident that Samiel would make friends with them. Everyone loved Samiel.

And if for some reason the dogs didn’t like him . . . well, at least Samiel could fly if necessary.

I went down the gangway between my house and the next to drop the plastic bag in the garbage can in the alley just outside the back fence. When I reentered the backyard I noticed someone standing there, his back to me.

“No wonder Daharan made so many pancakes,” I said. “Apparently it’s my day for a family reunion.”

Jude turned around, his shaggy red beard and piercing blue eyes as familiar and welcome as Samiel had been. He looked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“They told me you were dead,” he said hoarsely, taking a step toward me.

“I could say that thing about death and rumors and exaggeration, but you probably wouldn’t get it,” I said. Jude was very old, and very serious, and very literal-minded.

“I thought you were dead,” he repeated.

I realized I’d been a little thoughtless. Jude remembered the “B” in B.C. He also had lived through the “A” in A.D., long ago, when he was called Judas Iscariot and his name became infamous. He’d lost someone he’d pledged his life to, and for more than two thousand years he hadn’t made a pledge like that again. Until me. And he’d thought I died.

“Jude, I . . .” I began.

Several things happened at once. The back door flew open. Beezle, Nathaniel and Daharan streamed out onto the porch, all looking frantic.

The Retrievers came howling down the side of the house, chased by Samiel, who also appeared panicked.

Jude spun to face the new arrivals just as Beezle cried out, “Maddy, get away from him!”

And then a huge red-and-gray wolf leapt over the neighbor’s fence, into my yard, and tackled Jude to the ground.

Jude transformed into a matching red-and-gray wolf. The two canids tangled with each other, biting and clawing while I—and everyone else—stood frozen in surprise. Beezle flew to my shoulder.

“That’s not Jude,” he said.

“I figured that out,” I said. “But is the other one Jude?”

“Yes,” Beezle said, squinting at the two snarling wolves. I knew he was looking through all the layers of reality to see the creatures’ true essence. “It’s a good thing he showed up when he did. You looked like you were about to hug the fake Jude.”

“I was,” I admitted. “So who’s the fake?”

Beezle’s answer never came, for one of the wolves suddenly yelped and then bounded over the side fence into my neighbors’ yard. The other wolf growled and made to follow it.

“Wait!” I called, then glanced at Beezle. “I’m assuming that’s the real Jude there?”

Beezle nodded.

“Jude, wait,” I said.

He turned toward me, his muzzle streaked with blood, and growled low in his throat. He didn’t want to let his quarry escape. But I hadn’t seen Jude since before I destroyed the vampires infesting Chicago. He’d gone away to attend to some pack business, and he’d never come back. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed him.

“Jude, stay,” I said, and fell to my knees. Beezle fluttered away.

Jude took a half step toward me, then looked back in the direction of the imposter.

“We’ll find him,” I promised. Tears sprung to my eyes. I wiped them away with the heel of my hand. “Only—don’t leave. I can’t bear any more leavings.”

Everyone in the yard was silent, watching. The last time I’d fallen to my knees in this place I’d covered Gabriel’s bleeding body in the snow. Jude had helped me stand again, pulled me away from the snow and the cold and blood. It was spring now, and Gabriel was gone forever, but Gabriel’s heart lived on inside me, in the beating heart of his child.

The tears fell fast and thick now, and I could hardly see in front of me. Jude’s cold nose pressed against my cheek, and then I buried my face in the thick ruff of fur at his neck. He whined softly in his throat.

The spell was broken by Nathaniel, who abruptly took to the air, flying into the thick leaves of the catalpa tree that grew in the corner of my yard.

I heard someone familiar say, “Ow! You can’t do that!”

I came to my feet and spun toward the tree. Nathaniel emerged grim-faced, holding Jack Dabrowski by the collar of his jacket like a truculent child. He landed in front of me with Jack wriggling under his grasp like a worm on a hook. Nathaniel held a video camera in his free hand.

Daharan moved up to my left side, Samiel to my right. Beezle returned to his perch on my shoulder. The dogs crowded around our ankles, treating Jude like he was part of their pack.

Nathaniel looked at me, then at the camera.

“Break it,” I said.

“Naw, you can’t—Oh, man!” Jack said as Nathaniel looked at the camera and it burst into flame. A second later nothing was left but ash, which Nathaniel dumped in the grass.

“I told you to leave me alone,” I said to Jack.

“And I told you that I wasn’t going to stop,” Jack said, his feet dangling above the ground. “Hey, can you get your goon to let me down? It’s kind of hard to breathe when I’m in this position.”

“It’s kind of hard to breathe when angry supernatural creatures decide to punish you for not leaving well enough alone,” I said, but I nodded at Nathaniel to release Jack.

He did so, but made sure to stand close by and loom over the blogger. Nathaniel looms well. His height—well over six feet—helps with that.

Jude gave Jack a pointed look and growled. Jack gave Jude a nervous glance and backed away a few inches, which naturally caused him to bump into Nathaniel. He glanced up at Nathaniel’s cold, hard face, muttered, “Sorry,” and tried to find a position far from both Jude and Nathaniel.

Since we were all crowded around him in our best menacing fashion, this necessitated a lot of uncertain shuffling on his part. I watched him with a mixture of amusement and frustration. He was so far out of his depth, but he refused to be scared away.

Jack had waited his whole life to discover that all the things he believed in were real. He’d blogged about supernatural happenings in Chicago before anyone had realized there actually
were
supernatural happenings. And now that normal folk had become aware of things like vampires and angels, Jack Dabrowski had become something of a high priest among the faithful and the true believers.

Unfortunately Jack’s hobby conflicted with my own personal preference to stay under the radar as much as possible. He’d decided that I needed to be an intermediary between the magical world and the regular world. I didn’t want this job for numerous reasons, starting with
I had enough trouble
and ending with
I am not a people person
.

“You need to leave me alone, Jack,” I said. “Every time you meet me I break something that belongs to you. So far it’s only been your electronics.”

I let the threat hang in the air, hoping it would have some kind of effect.

Jack made a dismissive gesture. “You can’t fool me. I’ve been asking around about you since the last time you threatened me. I know you don’t hurt innocents.”

“Not on purpose, anyway,” Beezle mumbled. “But if you’re in her path when the avalanche starts rolling, watch out.”

I ignored Beezle. My heart had gone cold at Jack’s words. “Who have you been asking about me?”

He shrugged. “Around online. You know, you have quite the reputation. Did you really kill the High Queen of Faerie?”

“Gods above and below, you’re not even supposed to know that there
is
a High Queen of Faerie, much less that I killed her,” I said. “I don’t know how you found out about that, but you need to stop talking about me, especially online. You don’t know who you’re conversing with.”

My mind seethed with possibilities, all of them bad news for Jack. Leaving aside all the creatures that hated my guts and could potentially use Jack to get to me, he might draw the attention of Lucifer. And if Lucifer decided that Jack’s pursuit of me was attracting too much notice to his court, he would squash Jack like a bug.

“Like I don’t know how to trace people online?” Jack scoffed. “Believe me, I’ve verified the identity of every source I’ve ever had.”

“Are you crazy?” I shouted. “Do you want to be killed? Do you know how insanely dangerous it is to track down powerful beings who use the Internet for its anonymity?”

“Didn’t I say he was too stupid to live the first time we met?” Beezle said.

This was even worse than I thought. He was actively seeking out dangerous people in the name of research. Sooner or later he would stumble into a situation that would get him killed. And I would be responsible, because I couldn’t stop him.

Nathaniel looked at me. He understood a fair bit of what passed inside my mind without my saying a word. Ever since I’d released his magical legacy from Puck, there had been a powerful connection between us.

“You’ve warned him,” Nathaniel said. “His fate is in his own hands.”

Daharan nodded. “You cannot save everyone, Madeline.”

Their solemnity penetrated Jack’s bravado in a way my anger had not.

“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he said defiantly.

“Oh, yes, it is,” I said softly. I could almost see it happening—his capture, his torture, his death. A cloak of darkness seemed to settle over him, the resolute hand of the Reaper on his shoulder. We all felt it. We were attending Jack Dabrowski’s funeral.

“I’m not going to die!” he said angrily, desperately, backing away from me.

Nathaniel moved aside so Jack could free himself from our circle, from the relentless certainty of his death.

He held his hands palms up in front of him, to plead, to defend. “I’m not going to die.”

Jack backed into the fence, fumbled with the gate, stepped into the alley.

“I won’t,” he said before the gate slammed shut and we heard his footsteps running away.

“You will,” I said softly behind him. “Everything dies.”

A short while later we were all assembled around my dining room table eating gigantic stacks of pancakes. Jude had changed into clothes magically produced by Daharan. The wolf shoveled food into his mouth like it had been a long time since he had eaten a hot meal. Beezle was doing the same, but Beezle always ate like that.

Samiel, Daharan and Nathaniel ate more sedately. I picked at my food, my appetite gone.

“You must eat something,” Nathaniel said. “The baby is using too many of your resources.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

“She’s feeling distraught because she won’t be able to stop that moron from committing suicide,” Beezle said through a mouthful of pancake. His chest and belly were coated in butter and syrup.

“Did you get any food
in
your mouth?” Nathaniel asked, his face a mixture of fascination and repulsion.

“You ought to be used to it by now,” Beezle said.

“There are some things to which I will never be accustomed,” Nathaniel said.

“I couldn’t care less about that fool of a blogger,” Jude growled, breaking in. “What I’m concerned about, and what ought to concern you as well, was that shifter in your backyard pretending to be me. You’ve no idea of the trouble he’s caused.”

I’d nearly forgotten about the shifter in the kerfuffle over Jack. “What do you know about him?” I asked.

Jude shoveled a few more mouthfuls of pancake into his mouth before continuing. Now that I looked at him closely, it did seem that he had a lean and hungry look about him, and new lines were present around his eyes.

He leaned back and took a large gulp of coffee. “Remember when I left, before you destroyed the vampires?”

I nodded. “Beezle said you had pack business.”

“I did. Wade contacted me because we urgently needed to move the pack. Someone had discovered we were werewolves and ratted us out to the townsfolk. Before the vampire lord went on television, they would have thought the very idea of werewolves a load of rot. But after everyone in the world saw the nice Chicago commuters having their faces eaten off by creatures of the night, the locals were more than ready to believe in our existence.”

“And were, doubtless, gathering up their pitchforks and torches,” I said.

“You’re not far off,” Jude growled. “We’ve always lived in isolated spots, staying as far from towns as possible. Even without knowing about weres, people aren’t generally fond of wolves, especially in the country. Farmers and ranchers see us as varmints, and they shoot first and ask questions later, no matter what species-protection law might say.”

“But you have primarily resided on your own private land, yes?” Nathaniel asked.

Jude nodded. “That’s so.”

If the land belongs to you, couldn’t you keep people off it? Anyone who tried to attack you on your own property should be prosecuted,
Samiel signed.

“‘Should be’ is the operative term here,” Jude said. “There are some who have decided that supernatural creatures don’t have any rights to speak of. And those who have decided also have the ear of the local authorities.”

He paused, seeming to swallow some strong emotion.

“They attacked us, chased us off our land, killed several members of the pack, including two cubs who got lost in the confusion. They hunted us until we were too exhausted to go on, until we were forced to split up and hide where we could.”

I was afraid to ask. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. “Wade?”

“Is safe,” Jude said, “and so is his wife and daughter. But there are many other families torn to pieces in the last week or so, and my pack is scattered to the wind.”

“Isn’t there a safe place that you go when the pack is threatened?” I asked, remembering a fragment of conversation with Jude from long ago.

“Yes, but that place is under surveillance,” Jude said. “We were betrayed.”

Daharan spoke. “Your pack was infiltrated by this shapeshifter.” It was not a question.

“Yes,” Jude said.

“How
did
it happen again?” I asked. Last year, members of the pack had been killed by Lucifer’s shapeshifting son, Baraqiel. “After Baraqiel and the kidnapping of Wade and the cubs, I’d have thought you would be on your guard against any newcomers looking to join the pack.”

“We were,” Jude said. “This shifter wasn’t a newcomer. He wasn’t like Baraqiel, pretending to be a lone wolf looking for a pack. He was one of us.”

“A member of your pack gave you up to humans?” I asked, shocked. It seemed to go against everything that I knew of the family bonds of a werewolf pack.

“No. This shifter killed one of us and took his place,” Jude said. “And there was nothing to reveal the difference. His scent didn’t change; his manner didn’t change. The shifter became our pack member so completely that we never suspected, almost as if it had swallowed the soul of the person he took over.”

“So how did you discover the traitor?” Beezle asked.

“We didn’t. We didn’t even realize what had happened until Wade and I came upon the body of the real pack member while hiding from the hunters. It was decomposed almost beyond recognition.”

“Which means this shifter infiltrated your pack weeks ago and you never knew,” I said. “What put you on his trail?”

“I wasn’t on his trail,” Jude said. “We had received word you were still alive, and I was planning to come here in any case. Then the harassment began. Once the pack was broken up, I thought to come here, to see if you could help us. Imagine my surprise to discover my own self standing in your backyard, and you walking blindly into the teeth of the shark.”

“She does that,” Beezle said. “Responds emotionally instead of thinking and gets herself into trouble. I’d say it was a pregnant thing, but she’s acted like this her whole life.”

“And I stopped you from going after him,” I said, pretending Beezle hadn’t spoken. It was usually the best course of action with Beezle. Anything else encouraged bad behavior.

“You said we would find him and so we shall,” Jude said.

He did not blame me for letting the shifter go free. He didn’t even blame me for the scourge of vampires that had revealed the existence of supernatural creatures to the world, and thus opened his pack to harm. The weight of all the lost lives that could be laid at my door became heavier with each passing day.

“It seems our pack has been under a curse these last several months,” Jude said. “So many strange occurrences, kidnappings, deaths.”

“It’s because of me,” I said. “Wade’s association with me opened you to all this, brought you to the attention of my enemies.”

Jude shook his head. “I believe it is more than that. We are being targeted by someone, someone with a vendetta against us.”

“Someone using your association with Madeline as a smoke screen?” Nathaniel asked.

“Who would hate a bunch of werewolves that much?” Beezle asked.

“Perhaps it is not the weres who are hated,” Daharan said.

I gave him a sharp look. “Do you know something?”

“I have told you before that I cannot see the future clearly,” Daharan said.

“But you see
something
,” I persisted. “Do you know who is doing this to Wade’s pack?”

“It is not the future you should look to, but the past,” Daharan said with a pointed look at Jude.

The wolf appeared disconcerted. “My past?”

“You will discover the answer behind you, not ahead,” Daharan repeated.

“Wow, it’s like living with our own personal annoying cryptic oracle,” Beezle said.

“I only tell you what I can,” Daharan said.

Beezle shrugged. “You’re a good cook. That makes up for a multitude of sins in my book.”

“It’s the only reason he’s stayed with me all these years,” I told Daharan.

“It’s been ages since you’ve cooked anything,” Beezle said. “It’s always ‘apocalypse this, apocalypse that’ with you.”

“You could learn to take care of your own meals, gargoyle,” Nathaniel said, frowning.

“No, no,” I said. “You don’t want to see the state of the kitchen after Beezle’s been cooking.”

“She’s still upset about the s’mores incident,” Beezle said, sotto voce.

“The fire department was called,” I said.

Beezle looked affronted. “Every time you step out the front door, a city block burns down, and you’re still angry because I got a little smoke in the kitchen?”

“The microwave was destr—Never mind,” I said, because the others were staring at us. “So we’ve got two problems. First, find the shifter. Second, find a safe haven for the pack.”

“I am not certain it is a wise idea for the pack to gather together in one place,” Nathaniel said slowly.

“It would make it too easy to get rid of us,” Jude agreed.

It was a sign of how much things had changed that Jude and Nathaniel behaved civilly to each other. Time was they could barely stand to be in the same city, much less the same room. Nathaniel had changed, and not just physically. Jude was perceptive enough to pick up on that.

There was something else, too—a growing feeling that all of us in this room were linked together, and that our problems were greater than any one enemy. Ever since Alerian had risen from the lake like some Cthulhu-nightmare, I’d sensed something huge was approaching, some fate I would not be able to escape. All the crises I’d averted seemed merely a prologue. There was a larger plan at work, something that had been put in motion long before I was even born.

It was no stretch of the imagination to picture Lucifer and Puck and Alerian as major players in whatever was coming. Still, there was something I was missing. Some hand moved in the shadows, making all the puppets dance to its tune.

“Are you going to join the rest of us on Earth?” Beezle asked loudly. “Or are you going to sit there with a blank look for the rest of the day?”

“I was thinking,” I said.

“I could make a comment about burning, but I will withhold it. It’s too easy.”

“Your restraint is admirable,” I said dryly.

“Look, the Avengers are assembled,” Beezle said. “Don’t you want to develop a plan of action? Or at least charge out the door blindly the way you usually do?”

“Yeah,” I said, shaking off the lingering sense of approaching doom. “Jude, I don’t suppose you can track the scent of that shifter?”

He shook his head. “He’s like no shapeshifter I have ever seen. Baraqiel’s powers were startling enough, but they could at least be explained away by his parentage. Anything spawned from Lucifer is bound to have unusual abilities. But this shifter . . . he doesn’t just look like whoever he’s pretending to be. He
is
that person. He behaves like them; he smells like them. He is whoever he pretends to be.”

“How can that be?” I asked. “How can the magic leave no trace?”

“It did leave a trace,” Beezle said. “I could see through it to the essence underneath.”

“Until you patent those gargoyle-o-vision glasses, that doesn’t do us a lot of good,” I said. “Wait a second. You could see down to the shifter’s essence.”

Beezle had a speculative look on his face. “Gargoyle-o-vision. That has possibilities. I wonder why I didn’t think of that before.”

“Beezle! Focus! Did you see the shifter’s real identity or not?”

“Yeah, but it won’t help you,” Beezle said. “The essence didn’t look like anything concrete.”

“What do you mean?”

Beezle looked thoughtful. “It was almost like there wasn’t a real person—or a real creature—underneath the mask of Jude. The essence was kind of fuzzy and out of focus.”

“Like whatever it was had no real personality or identity other than what it took on?” I said. “It would have been born from something, right? Presumably another shapeshifter.”

Daharan broke in, his face angrier than I’d ever seen it. “Such things are not unheard of. There were three like this, long ago. But they were destroyed. I told him to destroy them. I watched it happen.”

“Told who to destroy them?” Beezle asked.

Daharan looked at me. “Alerian.”

As Daharan said his name I felt, briefly, that sense of the ocean closing over me. “So it’s nothing to do with Jude’s past at all, but Alerian’s.”

Daharan shook his head. “I can see that the pack’s troubles are tied to Jude’s history, although I cannot see precisely how. The shapeshifter is merely an agent working another’s will.”

“Working Alerian’s will?” Nathaniel asked.

“Alerian was asleep for hundreds of years,” I said. “The pack’s troubles are recent. Unless he left an ancient Post-it with instructions, it’s unlikely he’s behind this.” I looked to Daharan for confirmation.

My uncle nodded. “I believe Alerian has an agenda of his own, but I don’t believe it has anything to do with these wolves.”

“But the shapeshifter is connected to Alerian,” Jude said.

We all looked at Daharan expectantly. Having raised the subject, he now appeared reluctant to continue. I had noticed that while there was no love lost between the brothers, Daharan, in particular, was loyal to his blood.

I believe that he, as the eldest of the four, felt the burden and responsibility of their powers most, and thus was more inclined to keep family matters in the family circle. Although as I glanced around the table I realized everyone except Beezle and Jude
were
in his family circle.

Nathaniel was his brother Puck’s son, and thus the most closely related. Samiel was the next closest, as the son of Ramuell, who had been Lucifer’s son. I was the most distantly related, with several hundred generations separating me from Evangeline and Lucifer, my many-greats-grandparents. Really, the least likely person to belong at that table was me.

Yet Lucifer and all of his brothers sought me out. And Lucifer’s blood had manifested more power in me than any child of the intervening generations. I’d stopped asking “Why me?” It was pointless.

Daharan cleared his throat, and we all looked at him.

“Many thousands of years ago, when humans were still evolving into the creatures they would become today, my brother Alerian ruled over the seas of this Earth. This planet is particularly well suited to his powers, as there is more water than land. Lucifer and Puck squabbled over other places and other dimensions, as they always have.”