Kicking It

RED ISN’T REALLY MY COLOR BY CHRISTINA HENRY

This story takes place between the events of Black Night and Black Howl.

The envelope sat in the middle of my dining room table. It was creamy white, made of some kind of fancy paper that I would never be able to afford. My name, Madeline Black, was written on the front in beautiful calligraphy.

Beezle, my gargoyle, perched on my shoulder. We both contemplated the envelope in silence.

“So, are you going to open it or what?” Beezle finally said in his gravelly voice.

“I’d prefer not to,” I said.

“Okay, Bartleby. Then can we stop staring at it like it’s a bomb that’s about to explode and do something productive, like make dinner?”

“Dinner?” I asked, glancing at the clock. “It’s only one o’clock. You just ate lunch twenty minutes ago.”

“But the arrival of an unexpected messenger with a missive from your great-great-grandfather has disturbed the delicate balance of nutrition to energy inside my body, and now I’m starving again,” Beezle said.

“I’ve got news for you. There’s nothing delicate about your body,” I said, approaching the table. “And pizza is not generally considered a nutritional superfood.”

“I wasn’t going to say we should eat pizza,” Beezle said.

“Yes, you were,” I said. “If it’s not pizza, it’s wings, doughnuts, cinnamon rolls, Chinese food, or popcorn.”

“Ha!” Beezle said, floating off my shoulder on his little wings. “Popcorn is a superfood. It’s whole grain and everything. I think Rachael Ray or Katie Couric or Oprah or somebody said it was good for you. I’m making some now.”

“One bowl!” I called after him. “And adding half a pound of butter does not mean it’s still health food.”

I reached for the envelope with my right hand and turned it over. The coiled snake tattoo on my palm tingled, an exact match of the symbol pressed into the seal of the envelope.

The mark of Lucifer, my many-greats-grandfather.

I’d gotten the mark by using a sword made by Lucifer and tapping into some long-buried power inside me that tied me to his bloodline. I didn’t love having it. It identified me as one of Lucifer’s own, and there are many good reasons why an association with Lucifer is less than desirable. Starting with his list of enemies, which was far too extensive. And all of them liked to find ways to hurt him by hurting me.

Thanks to my unwanted family ties, I’d recently gotten sucked into a major diplomatic-mission-gone-wrong in one of the local faerie courts. In the process I’d managed to make a personal rival out of the faerie queen, Amarantha. I had enough on my plate without being chased down by angry fae every time I stepped outside of the house.

And now there was an envelope from Lucifer. I was sure that I wasn’t going to like what was inside. I tore the seal and withdrew the folded paper.

The paper was actually made of linen. Where does one even find linen paper?

I read the message inside, my eyebrows drawing closer together with every word. Then I tried to crumple the fancy linen into a tiny ball but succeeded only in making the letter look like it needed ironing.

I went down the hall to the kitchen and tried to slam the letter in the trash in a satisfying way. The expensive paper just drifted softly into the can.

Beezle was buried in a bowl of popcorn on the counter. And when I say “buried,” I mean he was actually buried. My gargoyle is about the size of an eight-week-old guinea pig. He fits in my coat pocket. So he can actually disappear into a serving bowl full of food—at least until he eats it all, which takes a surprisingly short amount of time.

He was facedown in the bowl. I could hear the sound of his stone jaws crunching away at the kernels on the bottom. The only visible parts of him were the claws on the tips of his feet. I grabbed one of those claws and yanked him out of the bowl, thus spilling popcorn onto the counter. He glared at me indignantly, swallowing the food stuffed in his beak.

“I’m in the middle of something here,” he said, flapping his little wings and wrenching his foot out of my grasp. He floated up to my eye level.

“Lucifer wants me to find the Red Shoes for him,” I said. “I don’t want to go on another mission for Lucifer that’s sure to go haywire. I don’t even know what the Red Shoes are.”

“What you don’t know could fill an encyclopedia. If people used encyclopedias anymore,” Beezle said.

I ignored him. “How am I supposed to find these things? And what makes these red shoes more special than any other pair of ruby slippers?”

“The Red Shoes are a legendary artifact,” Beezle said. “Nobody knows exactly how old they are, or where they originated. They are generally associated with the fae, but they didn’t make the shoes.”

“Oh, good. More faeries,” I muttered. “Why does Lucifer want them?”

“We-e-e-e-l-l-l,” Beezle said slowly. “Supposedly the wearer of the Red Shoes will be forced to dance without stopping.”

“Until?”

“Until nothing,” Beezle said. “Even if the wearer dies, or their limbs are cut off, the shoes will continue to dance.”

I had a horrible vision of amputated feet, still bloody at the ankles, gaily moving in the steps of a jig.

“So Lucifer is sending me after an ancient torture device disguised as attractive footwear,” I said.

“You’re surprised by this?” Beezle asked.

“No,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to get mixed up in any more faerie nonsense, do you?”

“Lucifer thinks it’s a good idea, or else he wouldn’t have asked you,” Beezle said.

“He didn’t ask,” I said through gritted teeth.

“He respects your strength. So he wants to test it,” Beezle said.

“I don’t test well,” I said.

“I don’t think you have a choice,” Beezle said.

“I have other stuff to do,” I said.

Beezle snorted. “Like what? Sit around and moon over your non-relationship with Gabriel?”

“I have souls to collect, as you well know,” I said, ignoring his jibe about Gabriel. My relationship with Gabriel was too complicated to think about. “Sacred duty as an Agent of Death and all that.”

“You have time in between soul pickups to investigate,” Beezle said. “You only collect one soul a day, at the most, and the rest of the time you’re at home driving me crazy when I want to watch Telemundo in the afternoon.”

“You can’t even speak Spanish,” I said.

“You don’t need to speak Spanish to understand telenovelas,” Beezle said. “They are awesome in any language. And most people think it’s a good idea to give Lucifer what he wants. Or else . . .”

“Yeah, I get it. Let’s not attract any more attention than I already have, right? I don’t even know where to start,” I said. “It’s not like Lucifer sent a picture of the shoes with that letter.”

“I can help with that,” Beezle said. He flew out of the kitchen, into the dining room and to the small table that I had set up as a computer desk next to the front door. He pushed the keyboard forward to make room for his belly on the table and then started tapping at the keys.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Best place for rumors is the Internet,” he said.

“You think the Internet is a reliable research tool to find the location of a mythical artifact?”

“It’s not a myth if Lucifer wants you to find it. He must know for sure that the Red Shoes are real. And you would be surprised at how many immortal creatures have Twitter accounts or hang out on message boards. Just because you’re too analog to enter the twenty-first century with the rest of us doesn’t mean that ancient beings disdain social media.”

“Just make with the Google,” I said. “You can mock my tech skills later.”

“What tech skills?” Beezle muttered, his claws flying rapidly from the keys to the mouse.

He had several browser windows open and clicked back and forth between them so quickly that I couldn’t begin to follow what was going on. I thought it wisest to back away slowly and wait for him to triumphantly present me with the required information.

Fifteen minutes later I stood in the kitchen, peering hopefully inside the refrigerator. No food had magically appeared there since the last time I looked.

“I got it!” Beezle said, flying into the kitchen with a slip of paper clutched in his little fist. “They’re right here in Chicago.”

“The shoes?” I asked. “Why would they be here?”

Beezle shrugged. “Because the creature that currently possesses them is living here temporarily.”

“And who—or what—would that creature be?”

“That would be Sammy Blue,” Beezle said. He seemed to enjoy teasing out the suspense.

“Are you going to tell me what’s so special about Sammy Blue?”

“Sammy Blue just happens to be an ambassador from Amarantha’s court. Her favorite ambassador, in point of fact. The one that she trusts with her most sensitive matters.”

Amarantha. Of course it would have something to do with Amarantha.

“So what’s this guy here for, anyway?” I asked. “Lucifer considers Chicago to be his territory and he’s not been very happy with Amarantha since she tried to have me killed. Isn’t she defying some ancient law about not crossing into another court’s borders without permission?”

“Technically, she’s not here. Her ambassador is. So they’ve got some wiggle room there, ancient-law-wise. Sammy is here to negotiate with some local witches. Amarantha apparently wants to retain their services,” Beezle said.

“Gee, you think she’s looking to get some spellthrower to put a curse on me?” I asked.

“Probably. That’s the kind of effect you have on people.”

“When I go to see Sammy Blue about these shoes, what are the chances that he’ll go into a berserker rage once he sees me?”

“Hmm,” Beezle said, tapping his finger on his chin. “You humiliated and disrespected his beloved monarch in a very public way. Then, when Amarantha tried to have you killed by proxy in the Maze you didn’t even have the decency to die there the way everyone else in history has done.”

“Yes, I’m annoying that way. I refuse to roll over and let some bully in a designer gown step on me.”

“It is annoying to royalty. They’re used to getting their way. Especially the fae.”

“In summary, diplomacy is unlikely to be an effective tactic for extracting the shoes from Sammy Blue.”

Beezle gave me an exaggerated look of surprise. “Was diplomacy even an option? I just thought you would do what you usually do—insult everyone present, break the furniture, set the building on fire.”

I had no snappy comeback for that one. Beezle had listed the extent of my skill set.

“What kind of a name is Sammy Blue, anyway? He sounds like a small-time drug dealer with a toothpick hanging from his mouth.”

“Sammy is short for some flowery fae name that starts with ‘Sam.’ I can’t remember it exactly. And Blue is a nickname that Amarantha gave him. See, Sammy likes to strangle people who make him unhappy.”

“He likes to see them turn blue,” I said.

“Yes,” Beezle said. “He likes to see them turn blue verrrry slowly. As in hours and days kind of slowly.”

“Great. So I’ve got to take the Red Shoes from a faerie psychopath who enjoys killing people by degrees and already has a reason to dislike me.”

“Pretty much,” Beezle said. “I’ll get your coat.”

I pulled on my black wool overcoat in defense against Chicago’s winter wind. Beezle put a scarf around his head, horns, and belly in a complicated wrap that made him look like a gargoyle mummy. His stony hawk’s eyes peered out from layers of brightly colored knitting.

I slung my sword over my shoulder. I had magical ways to defend myself, but I’d discovered pretty quickly that a pointy object is a great way to get someone’s attention.

We determined that it would be best if I did not attempt to contact Sammy Blue before going to visit him at his temporary quarters in a fancy Loop hotel. No sense in giving him warning so he could set a trap for me.

Beezle crawled over my shoulder and tucked into my inside coat pocket. I was certain he would promptly fall asleep, and sure enough, a few seconds later I heard the buzz saw rumble of his snore.

I pushed out my wings and flew out the kitchen window. The wings are part of my Agent’s legacy. I can’t be seen by ordinary mortals when I’m flying. Which is a good thing, as I’ve noticed people have a bad tendency to kill what they don’t understand. Supernatural creatures can sometimes see me, and sometimes they can’t. I’m not really sure if it has to do with their magic or mine. It was unlikely I would be camouflaged from any fae I encountered, though.

Sammy Blue’s hotel was a five-star type near the Magnificent Mile, the sort of place frequented by celebrities and other people with a lot more money than I would ever have. As the doorman opened the glass door, I slipped in behind a woman wearing a silver fox fur coat and carrying several shopping bags. The lobby was more or less what you would expect—crystal and marble and silk, oh, my—and the air was redolent with the scent trails of many expensive perfumes and colognes.

Once inside I paused. I knew Sammy Blue was staying here, but Beezle hadn’t given me a room number, and this place was far too huge to wander around and hope I bumped into someone who looked fae-like.

I could retract my wings, go to the front desk, and ask for him by name. Of course, I was dressed as my usual grubby self—black boots, faded jeans, black sweater—and security would probably remove me on sight for dirtying up the lobby. At the very least the concierge would notify Sammy Blue of my presence in the hotel, and I definitely did not want to spoil the element of surprise.

Getting Sammy’s room information from the front desk computer was my best bet, but there were three people moving back and forth in that space, and all of them seemed to spend a lot of time consulting the computer. My window of opportunity would be limited to the length of time it took the clerk to collect a receipt from the printer or hand over a room key.

The tricky thing about being invisible is that, well, you’re only invisible. You occupy the same space, and people can certainly feel you passing or hear any noises you might make. The average person will assume they imagined a sigh, or that there is just a draft in the room. But I would have to be extremely careful. If I accidentally bumped into anyone and they raised a fuss, it would be impossible to get the information I needed.

I moved off to the side of the lobby, hoping to find some clear space to extend my wings. My thought was to hover above the desk until my chance arrived. There was a lounge/bar area off the main lobby and a little alcove with a chair tucked to the side of the doorway. I made for the alcove, automatically glancing inside the lounge.

It was a good thing I did, because I saw the faerie sitting at the bar. His face was a dead giveaway. I’d never seen a faerie that wasn’t more beautiful than the sun. His face could have been carved by Michelangelo. He was impeccably dressed in a designer suit, and was receiving plenty of admiring glances, which he ignored as he stared blankly at the television above the bar.

There was only one reason for a faerie to choose solitude in a room full of interested parties. He was waiting for someone. His seat faced the door, which looked directly out onto the lobby. No one could pass by without his noticing. I hoped I could slip in without attracting his attention.

I moved down the three steps into the room, prepared to run after him if he saw me and bolted.

Which, of course, he did.

He locked eyes with me when I was about ten feet from him. His eyes were a startling violet, really and truly purple, and for just a second I paused. And while I paused, shocked by his fae eyes, he shot off his barstool so quickly that any human watching him would know he was not of this world. I’d assumed he’d head for the lobby and take the first elevator up to Sammy Blue’s room, knocking over as many people as he could in the process. But I guess I was the only one who operated that way. He snaked toward the back of the lounge in between the fashionable people moving through the room.

The ceiling was way too low for me to fly, so I had to pick my clumsy half-human way through the room. Of course everything was complicated by the fact that I was still invisible, and while I could see other people they could not see me and get out of my way.

By the time I reached the back of the lounge, the faerie, of course, had disappeared. The only exit in sight was a door into the kitchen, so I pushed through it, ignoring the startled look of the busboy, who must have wondered why the door slammed against the wall when no one was entering.

I scanned the kitchen and saw the faerie at the far end, leaning his finger on the call button for the service elevator. The cooks and dishwashers ignored him, which meant he must have put a veil over himself. The only person in the room aware of him was me. He glanced over his shoulder, saw me there, and held up his hand like a policeman stopping traffic.

A wave of pressure hit me square in the chest and knocked me back into some shelves stacked high with dishes and glassware. Just about everything crashed to the floor, and all of the kitchen workers cursed loudly in unison, wondering how the hell that could have happened.

I blasted nightfire at the faerie, hitting him right between the shoulder blades. His face banged against the frame of the elevator as the nightfire burned through his fancy suit. The flame itself didn’t seem to bother him, but he’d definitely had his bell rung when his face crunched into the wall. I saw him shaking his head like a dog.

Unfortunately, my spell did not go unnoticed by the humans. Nightfire looks like blue fire and reeks of sulfur, unlike the faerie’s silent pressure wave. Two of the kitchen workers ran from the room, and the others dropped to the ground as the blue ball of flame just missed their heads.

Beezle poked his head out of my coat pocket. “Broken possessions. Check. Ball of flame. Check. Did I miss the witty banter already?”

“There’s still time,” I said.

Now that everyone in the room had conveniently ducked, I could stop messing about trying to tiptoe around the workers. I raised up on my wings, then gave one great flap and arrowed over the prep counter in the center of the room. Beezle tucked back inside my coat pocket, muttering something about his advanced age and my lack of care about his personal safety.

I had just about reached the faerie when the elevator doors finally opened, revealing a waiter returning to the kitchen with a cart full of dirty room service dishes. My quarry dashed inside the elevator, but I was right behind him. He tried pushing the waiter and cart out to stop me, but I managed to maneuver over the blockade and squeeze into the elevator just as the doors closed.

I ended up in the upper-left corner of the elevator, floating on my wings and holding my sword to the faerie’s neck. His chin was tipped up to me by the point of the blade and his eyes were furious. I blasted nightfire at the control pad and the elevator ground to a halt, the emergency alarm beeping.

“Make it stop,” Beezle said, his voice muffled inside my coat.

Another shot of nightfire made the alarm cease.

“Now,” I said, panting a little from exertion. I needed to lose about thirty pounds. It would make all this scampering after bad guys a lot easier. “Who are you, and why did you run away from me like that?”

“May eternal damnation be upon your house, spawn of Lucifer,” the faerie spat.

“I am not Lucifer’s spawn,” I said. “He’s my grandfather about eight million times removed.”

“A technicality,” the faerie said. “I will not cooperate with one of his bloodline.”

Beezle popped his head out of my pocket and peered over the lapel of my coat. “I’d cooperate with her if I were you. She has this sort of Wicked Witch/Incredible Hulk combo power thing where she smashes everything in sight and then when she gets frustrated she burns it.”

“I know well what Madeline Black is capable of,” the faerie said through his teeth. “I am a member of Queen Amarantha’s court, and I have observed her powers close at hand.”

“You’re one of Amarantha’s bootlickers, huh?” I said, lowering to the ground as I tried to place his face and failed. There were way too many courtiers at Amarantha’s castle.

“I am not a bootlicker,” the faerie said, drawing himself up. It was impressive the way he managed to look haughtily offended even though I held a sword at his throat. “I am Arkan, the Duke of Trium, second cousin to the Queen herself.”

“You’re a toady—that’s what you are,” I said. “You were sitting in the lounge keeping an eye out for me. You’re no better than an errand boy.”

“I think you’re insulting errand boys,” Beezle said.

“I was charged by my queen and by her ambassador with a mission and I will fulfill it,” Arkan said. “You are not to interfere here.”

“Who said anything about interfering?” I said. “Maybe I’ve got my own reasons for being here.”

“Do you think I am a fool, or that my queen is? She knew that once you discovered her aim you would meddle,” Arkan said.

Interesting. Amarantha was up to no good and she didn’t want me to know about it. Which certainly raised the question of why she had decided to do her dirty deeds right under my nose. Beezle asked before I could.

“If Amarantha didn’t want Maddy around, then why is she doing her badness in Chicago?” Beezle asked.

“You know very well that there is a magical convergence of energy here,” Arkan said. “Do not play the fool.”

I did not know very well at all. In fact, I knew nothing about it. Beezle, however, looked thoughtful. My home guardian is like a little gargoyle-shaped encyclopedia of all things supernatural. I could tell that he was putting two and two together and getting four.

“That’s why she needed the witches,” Beezle murmured. “She doesn’t want her fingerprints on it if it works.”

“What are you muttering about?” I asked.

“It’s almost the solstice,” Beezle said.

“So?” I said. “Lots of witches do stuff around the solstice. It’s a thing.”

“Lots of good witches perform spells around the solstice, yes,” Beezle said. “And so do lots of bad ones. Because the solstice is a time of life and death and rebirth, and thus has a lot more magical oomph than a regular old day.”

“Did you just say the solstice has ‘oomph’?”

“Yeah, so?”

I decided not to pursue it. “What does that have to do with Chicago?”

“You truly do not know,” Arkan said, looking from Beezle’s face to mine. “I have been a fool. If I had only waited to discover your purpose here . . .”

“You mean, instead of taking off like a maniac the second you saw me? Yeah, you blew it. Now someone tell me what Amarantha’s up to, because at this point I’m going to have to stop her just on principle.”

“Chicago is a special place, magic-wise. You know how all of the old rail lines from the east converged on the city and then went out west, and all the shipping went through here to the canal?” Beezle said.

“Yeah,” I said, vaguely remembering some of this from elementary school history.

He squinted at me like he knew I didn’t really remember, but then continued. “There’s a reason for that besides Chicago’s strategic location. Magical energy converges on this city in a big way. It’s the reason why so many supernatural creatures live here, and why so many witches choose to practice here. That energy amplifies existing powers.”

“Okay, I’m following,” I said. “Chicago makes magic bigger and better, and so does the solstice. And the two combined mean that practitioners will get more out of whatever spells they cast. But this can’t be the only place in the world that does so. There has to be another city with special mojo where Amarantha could have gone, someplace where I wouldn’t get in her way.”

“There is, but the others are a lot farther away from Amarantha’s kingdom. Plus, her son is here, so she’s already got ties to the local supernatural community. The only fly in the ointment is you. Sammy Blue isn’t here just because he’s Amarantha’s ambassador. He’s here because he’s got the Red Shoes,” Beezle said, looking at Arkan for confirmation.

I had to give the faerie credit. I never would have seen the flicker in his eyes if I hadn’t been looking for it.

“The solstice is a time of life and death and rebirth, you said?” I asked Beezle, trying to pull all the threads together in my head. “And Amarantha needs witches and the Red Shoes . . .”

I stopped, because something horrible had just occurred to me. “Whatever spell she’s casting needs a sacrifice. And they’re going to use the shoes to do it.”

Beezle nodded. “It’s got to be something big, because the person wearing the shoes will generate a lot of agony for the spell. The suffering of the wearer will help to power the curse.”

“Extra solstice points, extra Chicago-magical-energy points, and hours-of-torturing-a-sacrifice points,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers. “And when the curse goes, Amarantha doesn’t want her own magic to be on it. So there’s only one person she could possibly be after. Lucifer.”

Beezle patted me on the shoulder. “See? If you exercise your brain enough, this kind of thinking gets easier.”

“Amarantha is trying to cast a spell against Lucifer?” I said to Arkan. “I thought she was smarter than she looked, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Do not insult my queen,” Arkan said. “She is a thousand times the woman you will ever be.”

“That’s probably true,” I said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s making a huge mistake by messing with Lucifer.”

“The Morningstar has insulted Queen Amarantha and the whole of faerie by claiming dominion over her court as repayment for the insult done to you,” Arkan said.

“So you’re acknowledging that there was an insult?” I said. “Because it generally is considered poor form to try to kill an ambassador, but Amarantha didn’t seem to agree with me.”

“Lucifer is not the emperor he imagines himself to be,” Arkan said as if I had never spoken. “He cannot even control the fallen of his own court. Look how Focalor conspires against him.”

“I’m sure that Focalor is suffering in a tiny cage surrounding by electrified bars right now,” I said. “Don’t you worry about Focalor. Worry about Amarantha, because nothing good will come of this, even though she’ll never succeed.”

“You think you can stop Sammy Blue? The ambassador has never yet failed in a mission for his queen,” Arkan said.

“There’s always a first time for everything,” I said. “And I am not going to leave and let some innocent be tortured by those shoes. So take me to your leader and all that.”

“You have broken the elevator,” Arkan said sulkily. “So thoroughly that the humans cannot even pry the doors open.”

I was suddenly aware of the clank of metal on metal and of several voices arguing just outside the elevator. By the sounds of it, they’d been there for many minutes without my noticing. I tend to get tunnel vision—and hearing—when I’m focused on a task.

“Veil yourself,” I told Arkan.

“Why should I?”

“Gods above and below,” I said. “I have never met a faerie that didn’t act like a spoiled child. I can’t believe your race has survived this long. You need to veil yourself because in a second I’m going to blast those doors open. And since I have my wings out I can’t be seen. But you can. So unless you want to be detained by humans and forced to answer a lot of questions about that mess downstairs in the kitchen, you will do as I say. Oh, and don’t try anything,” I said, waving the tip of my sword just under his chin.

“You would not dare kill me,” Arkan said. “I am a close relative of the queen. You would be forced to pay a blood price to answer for my death.”

“I’ve got news for you, pal,” Beezle said. “Whatever rules you think apply do not apply to Maddy. She’s got this thing about authority.”

Arkan looked uncertainly from me to Beezle.

“Perhaps you’ve heard that I killed two of Lucifer’s sons?” I asked. “Don’t think I’ll hesitate to take you out if I have to.”

“You are Lucifer’s spawn,” Arkan said. “You have his pride, his arrogance . . . One day someone will put you in your place.”

“Like I’ve never heard that before,” I said. “Beezle, watch him.”

I kept the sword under Arkan’s chin with my right hand and held up my left toward the elevator doors. The last two fingers of that hand were missing, the result of a battle that hadn’t needed to be fought. Lucifer claimed the missing digits would grow back, but that hadn’t happened yet.

I took a deep breath and drew upon the source of my magic, the wellspring inside me where all my power swirled. There were hidden depths there, depths I hadn’t yet begun to explore, depths where the strength of Lucifer’s bloodline would finally be revealed. I was frightened to use that power, afraid that it would bring me closer to the Morningstar’s circle. My great-grandfather had made no bones about the fact that he wanted me as his heir. My wants and Lucifer’s were two very different things.

But I’d drawn on some of that magic when I’d survived the Maze, and now that I carried Lucifer’s sword it seemed the power was closer to the surface than it used to be. I pulled on my magic, infused it with my will, pushed it out through the palm of my hand. The snake tattoo on my right palm twitched.

The elevator doors flew open in a shower of sparks. Three hotel employees stood there looking surprised. The one in the middle held a crowbar. He stared at the bar, and then at the doors, then back at the bar.

“Good job, Ed,” one of the guys said.

The other two men shouldered past him and into the elevator. I maneuvered Arkan out by gesturing for him to turn around so I could put the sword to his back. Then I poked him in the spine and pushed past the bewildered Ed and into the hallway. One of the men inside the elevator cursed loudly when he saw the charred control pad.

When we reached the bank of guest elevators in the center of the hallway I gave Arkan a nudge.

“Where’s Sammy staying?” I whispered.

Arkan did not answer.

“You know, I can just kill you now and find Sammy on my own,” I said. “It will take longer, but I’ll still get what I want.”

“Getting a little dark, aren’t we?” Beezle murmured.

I would do anything possible to protect the innocent, and despite my tough talk I would rather not kill anyone. But if it was necessary, I didn’t mind ridding the world of another selfish, useless faerie who was perfectly willing to participate in the torture of a human being just because his queen said so.

I waited. Finally, Arkan said, “The penthouse.”

I pressed the button for the up elevator and waited. When the car opened there was no one inside. That was good. It lessened the likelihood that Arkan might decide to take a human hostage to get away from me.

This simple mission was already a lot more complicated than I’d bargained for. It wasn’t just about Amarantha going up against Lucifer because her pride was hurt. It wasn’t even just about saving some innocent soul from a horrible death in the Red Shoes. If Amarantha succeeded in cursing Lucifer, then the contents of the curse itself wouldn’t even matter. She would be, for all intents and purposes, declaring war on the kingdom of the fallen.

The courts of the various races were carefully held apart by a series of accords and agreements and laws. This was to keep some very powerful and ancient creatures from tearing the planet apart while they squabbled over territory. If a court of faerie made aggressive overtures toward the highest court of the fallen, you could guarantee that a whole lot of people were going to get caught in the cross fire. That wasn’t acceptable to me, so I would do whatever I needed to do to stop this curse from happening in the first place. If I managed to snag the Red Shoes, as Lucifer had requested, then so much the better.

Of course, Lucifer probably had nefarious plans for the shoes himself. But I couldn’t worry about that right now. I needed to deal with the crisis at hand and then worry about the next crisis when it occurred.

A key was needed to access the penthouse via the elevator, and Arkan produced it after much grumbling on his part and threatening on mine. Beezle fell asleep again in my pocket, snoring away like a baby piglet. Pretty much all he does is eat, sleep, make smart comments about my poor decisions, and watch bad television.

The elevator doors opened on the penthouse. It was curiously quiet. I’d expected an entourage, maybe a bunch of witches hanging around preparing a spell. But there was nothing except a room empty of people but full of expensive furniture. A row of windows faced Michigan Avenue. I pushed the sword into Arkan’s back. “Move.”

We stepped into the room, my anxiety growing with each passing moment. This wasn’t right. At the very least Sammy Blue should have been waiting for Arkan to return. That is, unless . . .

“You’re Sammy Blue,” I said.

He turned to face me, those crazy violet eyes agleam with triumph.

Ah. There’s the trap, then.

I had only half a second to turn before the blow fell. I had an impression of something large and scary bringing its fist down on my head. My sword clattered to the ground, and everything went black.

I woke to the sound of murmuring chatter, people moving around the room like bees in a hive. The back of my head ached, and so did my ribs and stomach. I suspected that Sammy Blue had either stepped on me or kicked me a few times while I was out cold. I also felt vaguely like a blanket had been thrown over me, even though there wasn’t one.

I opened my eyes just to slits so I could peek around without drawing attention. Unfortunately, I was lying on my side on the carpet, my hands and ankles bound, and so all I could really see were shoes in motion. From the sound of the conversation I deduced that the witches had arrived. My trapped and tied state led me to further deduce that I was the sacrifice for which they’d been waiting.

If I’d thought it through all the way I would have realized they’d need me for the spell. They wanted to curse Lucifer, and nothing carries a curse better than blood. The blood of the victim, if you can get it, is ideal. I couldn’t imagine anyone with sense in his head trying to stick Lucifer and carry away a sample, though. The next best thing was someone from his bloodline. Wasn’t it convenient that his great-granddaughter was at hand?

I wriggled experimentally, trying to see if there was any play in the knots. There wasn’t. I considered trying to set the ropes on fire, then discarded that idea. I don’t have fine control of my powers. If I tried to burn the ropes apart, the whole hotel could go up in a giant conflagration and thousands of people could be killed.

Still, I’d managed to open the elevator doors without setting the building aflame, so maybe I could play Jedi and unknot the ropes with the power of my mind.

I reached for my magic—and it wasn’t there.

Or rather, it was there, but it wasn’t available to me. Now I knew why I felt like I’d had a blanket thrown over me. Someone had put a dampening spell on my power so I couldn’t use it. Well, it was nice for the bad guys that Sammy Blue had thought of everything.

Beezle’s reassuring weight was still in my front pocket. Either Sammy Blue had forgotten about him or decided that Beezle was no threat. It was true that Beezle was a threat only if you were a bag of candy that did not want to be eaten, but that didn’t mean that my gargoyle wasn’t useful.

“Beezle!” I said through closed lips. My back was pressed up against a wall and no one was near me, but a lot of supernatural creatures have better hearing than I do. I knew werewolves that could hear a pin drop on the other side of the continent.

My gargoyle did not respond.

“Beezle!” I repeated, trying to wriggle my shoulder so that the coat pocket my gargoyle was nestled in would move.

The only response was a long exhalation.

“Seriously? You’re still asleep?” I muttered.

Beezle could untie my hands and feet. Even without my magic I could still use my sword. If I could find it. Since Sammy was so thorough, I was sure he hadn’t left it within my reach.

I opened my eyes a little more. Nobody was paying any attention to me. The furniture was pushed against the walls. The curtains were drawn. Three witches stood around a circle on the floor. They were young and completely ordinary-looking. They might have been office workers or college students. There was nothing to indicate that they were about to use their magic to torture another human being to death.

They were walking through the process of the spell, and occasionally one of them would use a piece of chalk to add a symbol inside the circle. Sammy Blue stood off in the corner, talking quietly on his cell phone, his back to me. I noticed he’d taken the time to change out of the suit he’d worn earlier and put on a different one—one that didn’t have a hole in the back from my nightfire blast.

The thing that hit me in the head had disappeared. Maybe it was taking a nap in the bedroom.

My sword leaned against the wall near the elevator, just about as far from me as it could possibly be. I’d have to get untied, sprint across the room—difficult, as I’d just been conked in the head and probably had a concussion—grab the sword, fight off three witches and a clever faerie, avoid whatever giant monster had hit me in the first place, find the Red Shoes and escape from the highest room in the building. All this without my magic.

No pressure.

“Beezle!” I said again, as quietly as I could.

“Your gargoyle will not wake,” Sammy Blue said, sliding his cell phone into his pocket. He turned and walked toward me, looking altogether too pleased with himself. “The circle that surrounds you quashes your magic as well as his. And since he is so small and infinitely more magical than you, the circle keeps him asleep. So do not seek his help, nor anyone else’s. No one will come.”

I opened my eyes fully, and for the first time noticed the circle drawn around me. It was far enough away from my body that I couldn’t smudge it and break the spell. Okay. This was actually good news. It meant that if I could get out of the circle my power would wake up. Now I just had to get out of the circle.

Sammy Blue stopped just outside the circle, his violet eyes bright with anticipation. “My queen was correct. She knew that you would fall into a trap if you thought you were acting the heroine. It was pathetically easy to lure you here.”

“And now with the evil-villain monologue,” I said under my breath, then more loudly, “You didn’t lure me here. I was sent here for another purpose.”

Sammy nodded. “To obtain the Red Shoes, yes. My queen made certain the rumor of the shoes reached Lucifer’s ears. Then she sent me here, to your city. Lucifer predictably recruited you to get the shoes for him. So you see, it was all planned from the start. And you behaved exactly as my queen expected.”

“Smugness is not an attractive quality,” I said.

Sammy gave a short laugh, then crossed to a watercolor of Lake Michigan that hung on the wall. He moved the painting aside to reveal a safe. He punched in a code on the electronic keypad, and the safe door swung open. Before continuing he carefully pulled a pair of latex gloves from the pocket of his suit and put them on. Then he reached into the safe and drew out the Red Shoes.

“I believe you were looking for these,” he said.

The moment I saw the shoes I felt an almost overwhelming desire to possess them. They looked like a pair of red satin ballet slippers, just like the red shoes in that old movie about the dancer. Ribbons trailed from the ankles, shackles for whoever was unfortunate enough to be tempted to put them on. An aura radiated from the shoes, a palpable sense of wrongness, and it blended with desire.

I realized that was the power of the shoes—not simply that they would hurt you but that you would want the hurt, that they would twist you and bend you and break you, but you would love it all the while, down to your last moment on earth, still dancing, dancing forever like the twirling ballerina in a music box. I could see myself there, spinning in joy and agony, my arms thrown to the sky, welcoming death.

No, I thought. I was an Agent of Death. Death did not dictate to me. I would not let my life end like this, a broken marionette for the amusement of Sammy Blue.

The effort it took to tamp down the desire for the shoes made me nauseous. It took every shred of will that I had to remember who I was, and why I was there.

I looked at the shoes, and then at Sammy Blue with clear eyes. Surprise registered on his face.

“Interesting. There are few who can withstand the call of the shoes. Your will is very strong. It must be, to have survived the Maze.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then smiled. “That strength will make the spell last longer. And that will give it more power, yes?”

He turned to the witches for confirmation. They had all paused in their activities to watch Sammy gloat over me. One of them, a skinny redhead in designer jeans, nodded.

“The greater the endurance of the sacrifice, the stronger the curse will be when it is completed,” she said. She looked at me as she said this, with no malice or guilt. It didn’t make a difference to her one way or the other if I lived or died. This was just a job to her.

The other two seemed to share her indifference. There was no help coming from that quarter.

It was down to me, as usual.

“Now,” Sammy said, smiling widely. His smile was getting crazier by the minute. He was definitely looking forward to this. “I think you need to change your shoes.”

The longing for the shoes rose up again, but I tamped it down. I shook my head. “Uh-uh.”

Sammy narrowed his eyes at me. My resistance was a benefit to them, but it was also a problem. No doubt they had counted on me wanting to put the shoes on voluntarily. Now someone would have to break the circle to get them on me, and that would mean I’d have access to my magic again, even if it were for only a moment. I could see him calculating rapidly. He turned his back on me so he could conference with the witches.

I had to do something. I couldn’t wait for Sammy and his three little sorceresses to figure out how to force the shoes on me. But the only thing I had at the moment was my will—no magic, no sword.

Your will was enough in the Maze.

The thought appeared out of nowhere. My will had been enough in the Maze. My magic had been taken from me there, and I’d survived. More than survived—I’d beaten it, and no one in history had ever beaten the Maze. Except me.

The snake on my palm twitched. My Agent’s magic wasn’t the only power inside me. The blood of Lucifer Morningstar ran in my veins. The well inside me was deep with magic, more than I’d even begun to touch. That magic made the witches’ circle seem like a toy, a toy I could break if I so chose.

The spell over me wavered. I felt it, like a radio signal breaking up. I drew up my will, concentrated on the place where I felt the spell breaking.

And I snapped it. Beezle grunted awake inside my pocket and poked his head out.

“Better stay inside,” I said. He ducked back under my lapel. I pushed the force of my will into the knots that bound me and, like that, they were gone.

I stood and faced Sammy Blue and the three witches. They were huddled together, not concerned about me at all. Too bad for them.

Before I’d learned I was the many-greats-granddaughter of the first of the fallen, I’d killed a nephilim called Ramuell. I’d done this by letting my power flow up through me, allowing the full force of it to blossom and become something I could not control. It had exploded out of me like a burst of sunlight.

All that had remained of Ramuell was a little pile of ash. Ramuell had been a creature of darkness, and the merest hint of the sun would have melted him anyway. But it’s not a good idea for humans—or faeries—to fly too close to the sun, either.

I drew on the power that lay buried inside me—the light of the sun, the light of Lucifer Morningstar. Instead of letting it explode out of me indiscriminately, I focused it on the four people in front of me, who all looked up at the same time.

And who all looked very surprised to see me standing there.

“Impossible,” Sammy Blue said.

“Your eyes,” one of the witches said. “There are stars in your eyes.”

“I know,” I said, and let my magic fly.

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.”