I dropped my bag in the kitchen and slumped into one of the dining room chairs. “I feel like I could eat a whole pig.”

“Barbecue sounds good,” Beezle said hopefully.

I thought about the tiny amount of money in my checking account that was not Azazel’s. We could probably order out but we wouldn’t have much left over for anything else important until I got a paying job again. On the other hand, I wasn’t capable of cooking anything more strenuous than toast at the moment.

“Bring me the phone,” I sighed.

Beezle clapped his hands together in delight and flew to the portable phone. Gabriel and Samiel watched me in silence. It was eerie. Neither of them looked like Ramuell, thank goodness, so they didn’t resemble each other as siblings. But they wore identical expressions of expectation.

“What are you going to do about Samiel?” Gabriel asked.

“He can live here,” I said.

“And how are you going to explain that to Lord Lucifer and Lord Azazel?” Gabriel replied. “At the very least, he should be brought before the courts for the crime of releasing Ramuell.”

I’d kind of forgotten about that. “Technically, I suppose, he was responsible. But you know that it was Ariell who was controlling him and Ramuell both.”

Gabriel shook his head stubbornly. “The Grigori will not see it that way. He released Ramuell and created portals to draw the nephilim back. He was responsible for his own actions.”

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that I should throw Samiel to the wolves? Don’t you have any compassion at all? Azazel successfully argued to spare your life when you were a baby. Why wouldn’t I be able to do the same for Samiel?” I couldn’t believe he was acting like this. Samiel was his half brother, for crying out loud.

“I was innocent when Azazel saved me. Samiel has committed a crime. That compounds the sin of his birth. He must go before the assembly of the Grigori to face judgment,” Gabriel said.

Samiel watched this argument avidly. I wasn’t sure how much of it he was getting but I already suspected that he was a pretty adept lip-reader. His eyes were wide as he turned his head back and forth between Gabriel and me.

“Why are you trying to pick a fight about this?” I said angrily. “You know I would never consent to such a thing. Samiel stays here with us. End of story.”

“No, it is not the end of the story. I have told you time and again that you do not comprehend Lucifer’s kingdom. His law and his word are absolute. There is no flexing of the rules. Samiel must pay for his crimes.”

Gabriel was white as the moon as he said this, and the corners of his eyes looked tight. Something else was going on.

“This is not about Samiel,” I said. “What the hell crawled up your butt and died? You’d think you’d be happy and grateful that I saved your ass from being used by Amarantha for all eternity.”

“I am indeed happy and grateful, mistress,” Gabriel said tightly.

“What’s with the mistress business?” I said.

“I was Azazel’s thrall until I was taken by Samiel and given to Focalor. Then I was Focalor’s thrall. Then I was Amarantha’s thrall. You have won me from the Maze as your prize; therefore, I am now your thrall,” he shouted.

I looked at him in dawning comprehension. “You belong to me now.”

“Yes.”

I shrugged, relieved that this was all he was upset about. “So I’ll free you, and that’s that taken care of. No big.”

Gabriel stalked forward, his eyes an exploding field of stars on a canvas of black. “You do not understand. It is like you deliberately choose not to understand. How many times must I tell you that Lucifer’s law is the only law? I am a thrall in his kingdom; therefore I am always a thrall. You cannot free me. Only Lucifer can do that.”

“So I’ll ask him to free you,” I argued.

“Which he will not do. It would set a dangerous precedent.”

“Well, so the hell what?” I shouted, losing my temper. “Isn’t it better to be my thrall than Azazel’s or Amarantha’s? You know I won’t abuse you like they would. I’ve always treated you like my equal anyway.”

“But I am not your equal,” Gabriel said, and his jaw was clamped tight. “I will never be your equal. And do you think that I could stand before you as a lover, knowing that I am always below you, that I must submit to your will above my own? Could you accept me thus, never knowing if I was telling you what was in my heart or just what you wanted to hear?”

The anger ran out of me in a rush, my temper deflated. I hadn’t thought about Gabriel’s status in those terms, or really thought about it at all. I’d been so focused on getting him back, and yes, I’d pictured a lot of happy canoodling once we were reunited.

But I didn’t think I would be his mistress. I didn’t think that he would be my slave. It didn’t matter if I treated him as an equal. The fact of his thralldom would always stand in our way.

“Now do you see? You may have kept me from Amarantha, but now my status is a bigger impediment than before. At least before I felt I could speak my feelings to you freely, even if I was unable to act upon them,” he said bitterly.

“You still can,” I said fiercely. “Nothing is going to change between us.”

“Everything already has,” Gabriel said. “And I would advise you not to become too attached to Samiel, for the Grigori will come for him, sooner or later.”

“They won’t take him from me,” I said, and I looked at Samiel as I said it. It was a promise from my heart. “They won’t take you from me. You’re safe here.”

“Do not make promises you cannot keep,” Gabriel advised, and then he walked out of the kitchen.

I rubbed my eyes with my hand. “Really, how many problems can one girl have in a day?”

“Yeah, you totally made an enemy of Focalor and Amarantha, and you broke a bunch of rules by taking in Samiel like a stray dog,” Beezle said.

I turned to see him hanging in the hallway with the phone is his hand.

“Enjoy the show?” I said.

“Not particularly. Contrary to what you may think, I don’t enjoy seeing you hurt,” Beezle said, then he cleared his throat. “So are we having barbecue or what?”

I held my hand out for the phone.

The deliveryman had looked at me funny when he delivered the food, and I realized afterward that while I’d made sure Gabriel was healed by Nathaniel I hadn’t done the same for myself. Most of my aches and pains had cleared up while I slept, but my face was still bruised and my clothes still covered in blood. And my fingers were still missing. I wondered if anything could be done about that, or if I would be a three-fingered lefty for the rest of my life.

After dinner I settled Samiel in for the night on the pullout couch in my living room. He seemed completely overwhelmed by the trappings of civilization. The food—and its method of delivery—was amazing to him. The toilet got flushed about four hundred times in a row once he figured out what purpose the handle served.

He couldn’t stop touching the lightbulbs, the face of the microwave, lifting and lowering the phone from its cradle. His immense pleasure in the sheets and blankets that made up his bed was apparent. I wondered how long he had been living in that cave in the desert.

I turned out the light, resolving to devise some better method of communication with Samiel tomorrow. He could understand pretty much anything, but he had no way of telling me what he wanted. And I wanted to know more about him, about his life before.

Beezle fluttered up next to me. “I’m going to sleep in my nest tonight.”

“Okay,” I said, a little surprised. I’d thought that after my near-death experience he’d want to stay close to me.

He flew out the front window without another word, and I walked slowly down the hall to my own room. I shut the door in deference to Samiel and sat on my bed.

In the past week I’d lost Gabriel, lost Beezle, survived two attacks by Samiel, discovered the bodies of three wolves, found Beezle and Gabriel, killed a giant spider and a leviathan, lost my magic several times, totally screwed up my assignment as faerie ambassador but had averted an uprising in Lucifer’s kingdom, made a new enemy in Amarantha, been assaulted by my fiancé, lost part of my left hand, taken on the new responsibility of Samiel and defied all expectation and survived the horrors of the Maze.

I was tired.

I was also alone, and I hadn’t expected to be. I curled up on my bed in my bloodied and torn clothes and waited for the tears to come. But my eyes stayed dry all night long.

18

I MUST HAVE SLEPT FOR A WHILE, BECAUSE THE NEXT thing I knew my eyes were open and my heart was beating a thousand miles a minute. The digital clock on my bedside table showed me that it was past three in the morning.

I wondered if a nightmare had woken me from my sleep. I was sure that I would be carrying the events of the Maze around with me for quite a while.

But I didn’t remember a nightmare. Maybe a noise had woken me. Maybe Samiel had gotten up to use the bathroom and I’d registered the sound unconsciously. I wasn’t used to another living being besides Beezle in the house.

I listened for a moment, but didn’t hear anything. I tried to close my eyes again but now that I was awake my brain was whirling. I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. Lucifer’s sword winked at me. It was leaning in the corner of my bedroom next to my closet. I didn’t remember leaving it there, or in fact carrying it into the house at all.

A second later I saw a strange burst of green light outside. I stood up and went to the window. The light was coming from the alley behind my house. I couldn’t see its source from the angle that I stood at, but it flashed once, twice, three times. And it didn’t look like the kind of light that occurred naturally.

I didn’t relish the prospect of yet another paranormal encounter when I’d just gotten home from my big faerie adventure, but I needed to see what was going on in the alley. A lot of normal people lived in my neighborhood and as far as I knew I was the only person equipped to deal with supernatural weirdness.