But he didn’t. He pushed the half-eaten bag of pretzels to one side, made a great show of dusting crumbs off his claws, and flew out the kitchen window without another word.

17

NATHANIEL STOOD IN THE CORNER OF THE KITCHEN, near the hall. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t tried to intervene.

I didn’t look at him. My throat was tight. I thought that if he gave me one kind word at that moment, I would crumple to the floor and never get up again.

“I would comfort you,” Nathaniel said carefully, “but I sense that is precisely what you do not want.”

“You sense correctly,” I said. I was proud of the fact that my voice wobbled only a little. “You know, you don’t have to stay, either. All the other rats are leaving the sinking ship. You should get out while you still can.”

“Madeline. I would not leave you. Now more than ever we are two of a kind. Could any of the others understand your magic, your burdens, as well as I?”

“No,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t put you under any obligation to me.”

“It is my choice.”

It was astounding that the last person I’d ever expected to stand by me was the only person left with me now that my life was going to hell in a handbasket.

When I’d first met Nathaniel I thought he would protect himself at any cost. I thought if he had a chance to keep out of personal danger, he would take it. I thought he would never be the kind of man who stood in front of me, sword raised, ready to keep me from harm.

Yet Beezle was gone. Samiel was gone. Gabriel was dead. And Nathaniel was still here. He was choosing to be here.

“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t say the other thing I was thinking. I could love you. Maybe. Someday. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

I didn’t embrace him, or give him one last longing look. I flew out the window, because I needed to forget about those things that tethered me to life. I was going to a place of the dead, and if I longed too much for life, then I wouldn’t be able to do it.

I flew up and up and up, soaring above the city, into the place where the atmosphere became thin. The lack of oxygen might have bothered me before, but not today. My body seemed to adjust as needed, without direction from me.

I kept going, past the clouds, past where the blue sky touched the dark of space. Still I went up, and beyond, and I passed into a place on the edge of starlight. There, time moved at a different speed.

I could see all of the worlds beneath me, all the worlds that had ever been and ever were and ever would be. I did not have to search for the correct place. Evangeline’s spirit called me, a flare of red like a homing beacon. I sensed her in my head, drawing me to her just as I had drawn the vampires to me.

Beneath me was the land of the dead—or one of them, anyway. My newfound knowledge told me that all of the dead of history were scattered throughout many worlds. It was the choice of those worlds that a soul was given when it passed through the Door.

My descent began, past the blazing sun of this world, through the empty air. The landscape was as stark as it had been in my dreams. Everywhere I looked there was white sand, bleached bone, gray rock.

I alighted on the same flat stone and looked around, shielding my eyes from the sun’s glare. One moment she wasn’t there. The next moment she was.

She stood before me in the same gray gown she had worn in my vision. The small round bulge of her belly was just visible when the wind brushed her dress against her body. Her hair fluttered in the wind, black corkscrew curls, and I had the disturbing realization that my hair was exactly like hers.

“I knew he would send you for me,” Evangeline said with a self-satisfied expression.

“You know, you had the choice of all the worlds,” I said, ignoring her jibe. “Why did you pick this barren shithole?”

The smirk dropped from her face. “This land is very like the place where I was raised.”

“Oh, you mean the nuclear wasteland,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What, you missed the radiation poisoning?”

“Your judgment means nothing,” Evangeline spat. “I will leave this land soon, in any case. Lucifer is defying the universe for me, for our child, just as I knew he would.”

“Except that he’s not defying anything,” I said. “Lucifer isn’t here. I am.”

“So?” she challenged.

“He doesn’t love you for your brains, does he? Obviously, he isn’t here because you are not vital enough for him to risk his own precious self, even with that monster in your belly,” I said.

Her face fell for a moment; then she visibly gathered herself. “Lucifer is far too important to endanger his physical being. I understand why he sent you in his stead. If he were destroyed, the very fabric of the universe would come undone. You, however, are expendable.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“You are in no position to sneer at me, as you are present, acting upon his orders,” she said.

“I am here,” I admitted. “But it’s not a done deal. I could leave you.”

Evangeline stared at me. “You cannot. You must do as Lucifer bids.”

“No, I must not. I’m human. We’ve got this thing called free will.”

“If you do not take me willingly, then Lucifer will command you to as Hound of the Hunt,” she said triumphantly.

“I could still drop you somewhere along the way,” I said casually.

Her eyes widened. Apparently my reputation as a loose cannon was potent enough that she took my threat seriously.

“Lucifer would kill you if you caused the death of his child,” she said.

“And he’ll kill you if you cause the death of mine,” I said, finally coming around to the point. I wanted to make sure that she knew I was not to be trifled with. “I don’t see you as a threat. But you obviously see me as one. So don’t get any ideas about trying to take me or my kid out just so you can be number one with Lucifer.”

“No one except my child will be Lucifer’s heir,” Evangeline hissed.

“That’s not up to you,” I said. “But I’ll tell you this—I’ve already killed two of Lucifer’s children, and I’m still up and walking around. Don’t think I’ll hesitate to take out your little monster if I have to. If you try to harm my child, then you will not live to see another dawn.”

We stood there, face-to-face under the blazing sun in a desert of white sand, and took each other’s measure. Evangeline blinked first.

“You will not threaten me,” she said haughtily, drawing her bravado around her like a cloak. “I will be Lucifer’s queen.”

“Remember what I said.”

“You—”

“Remember what I said,” I repeated.

Maybe I was going a little dark side.

“Now, get walking,” I said, and pointed west, toward the horizon.

Evangeline’s lips parted. “Walk?”

I nodded. “You don’t think we can just fly out of here, do you? We’ve got to earn it. I’m taking a soul from the other side of the Door.”

“Surely you have the ability to…”

“Do you want to stay? Because that will make my life a lot less complicated, and I’m very big on anything that will make my life easier right now,” I said.

“I cannot believe that you expect me to pay the price for our return,” she muttered.

“I’m not paying it,” I said. “You want to live again, you pony up. I’m just the delivery girl.”

It was helpful to consider myself that way, to think that I was simply doing the same duty I had always done as an Agent, except in reverse. It was easier than thinking about the fact that I was doing something that undid the order of the universe just so Lucifer could exert his will.

When I thought about it that way, my bitterness was like chalk in my mouth. Of course I’d never had a real option to leave Evangeline behind, no matter what I’d said. If I’d come home without her, Lucifer would have simply ordered me back as Hound, and I would have been unable to resist. I’d thought it would be better to do it of my own free will, but it was almost worse. I couldn’t fall back on the excuse that I’d been nothing but a puppet for Lucifer.

Evangeline reluctantly trudged forward. She looked like a pouty child who was told that she couldn’t have a lollipop.

There was something of the child about Evangeline still, I mused. She had been very young when she’d fallen in love with Lucifer, and she had destroyed her whole village and anyone who crossed her in order to get to him. She had been taken from Lucifer by a rival faction of fallen angels, and then been rescued by Michael and hidden away.

In a sense she had never really grown up. And I knew from experience that when Evangeline wanted something, she would lay waste to anything in her path to get it. When she’d wanted her vengeance on Ariell, the angel who had stolen her from Lucifer, she had possessed me. She’d lost her mind completely when I’d refused to let her work her will through my body, and then she’d been killed by Ramuell and ended up here.

I was pretty sure that she was right on the edge of insanity. I was also sure that whatever plans Lucifer had for the future did not include having a mad queen on the throne beside him.

He wanted the baby. Just as he wanted my baby.

My son gave a little flutter underneath my belly button. I wished I could be as other mothers were, the ones who lay on their sofas and dreamed of their child’s face, their child’s future. When I looked into my child’s future I saw a life of turmoil and pain.

And love, a little voice whispered from the back of my head, and it sounded a lot like Beezle.

Yes, I would love this baby. I already did, with a fury and a power I had not expected. I would do anything for my son.

And so would Evangeline. I glanced at her as she padded along in the sand in bare feet, her hair waving about in wild Medusa springs. She was nuts. She would kill me in an instant if she thought she could get away with it, because it was pretty clear that she was jealous of my standing with Lucifer. I’d like to tell her she was welcome to him if she would just keep him away from me, but I didn’t think she would believe me.