What the hell does she know? Samiel signed. She makes it up as she goes along, and the person she loved got stabbed to death. I don’t think Maddy is the best person to decide how to save Chloe.

I turned away from them. I didn’t want to see what else Samiel might say, what other truths he might reveal in the heat of anger. It wasn’t the time for hurt feelings. But it did hurt. I’d always thought Samiel loved me unconditionally, that he didn’t blame me for Gabriel’s death. I guess it just proved that, as everyone kept telling me, I needed to stop taking people at face value. I was the only person I knew who wasn’t any good at deception.

While all this was happening Nathaniel and the monster remained locked in their silent communion.

“Why is it taking so long?” I wondered aloud.

“Nathaniel’s resisting,” Beezle said. “That’s pretty impressive, considering he’s got no magic right now.”

“How can you tell?”

“If he wasn’t resisting, then it would be over by now. And since the monster wasn’t responding to us, it must be unable to get out of the spell until its victim is hypnotized,” Beezle said.

I looked at the monster, then at Nathaniel and Chloe, and I had an idea. “Are you willing to bet my life on that theory?”

Beezle looked uncertain, an expression I’d hardly ever seen on his face. “Why? What are you going to do?”

“J.B.,” I said. “Can you put me on top of the monster’s head?”

14

“NO, I CANNOT,” J.B. SAID.

“Cannot or will not?”

“It’s the same damn thing,” he said. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you do whatever you’re thinking of doing.”

“I want you to fly me up to the top of the monster’s head and drop me there, and then I’ll stab it through the eye,” I said.

“And now that I know your plan, I am definitely not helping,” J.B. said.

“I thought you weren’t going to kill it,” Beezle said.

“That was when I thought it was distractible,” I said. “It’s not, so I’m going to kill it. Or at least injure it horribly enough that it won’t be able to chase after us. And if you don’t fly me up there, Jacob Benjamin Bennett, I will climb up to the top of the monster’s head from its tail, and you can stand there and watch me.”

“She threw down the middle name,” Beezle said.

“You’d do it, too, just to piss me off,” J.B. said.

“No one else has a better idea. You’ve got the wings; I’ve got the sword.”

“It’s a goddamned freaking miracle you’ve survived this long,” J.B. said, and he scooped me up.

“Keep Samiel here,” I said to Jude.

“No problem,” he said. He had wrapped his arms around Samiel’s and was holding the furious angel still.

“I think I’ll just stay here and keep score,” Beezle said.

“You do that,” I said. “Everyone be ready to run.”

J.B. held me close to him as we flew. I was tense in his arms, preparing for the moment when he dropped me. I wasn’t completely convinced that the monster would be able to ignore my presence once I landed on its head, and I wanted to be able to stab it and get out of there as quickly as possible.

“Once you drop me, circle around and wait close to the ceiling,” I said.

“Like I’m going to leave you there alone,” J.B. said. “Don’t be stupid.”

“You don’t have a sword,” I said. “What are you going to do?”

“Make sure you don’t get tossed into a wall when the creature goes berserk after you stab it,” J.B. said. “I agreed to this insane plan, but I am not leaving you alone there, so forget it.”

We were above the monster long before I was ready. It hadn’t seemed to notice us flying directly toward it. As Beezle had noted, all of the creature’s energy was focused on Nathaniel.

The angel hadn’t registered our presence, either. His face was red from the exertion of trying to resist the creature’s spell, but he was resisting. Now that we were close, I could see the spark of fury in his eyes.

J.B. straightened so that it looked like we were standing in the air, and very gently lowered us toward the monster’s head. The creature’s fur was matted and filthy, and it smelled like it had been rolling in meat for the last hundred years.

I have a sensitive stomach, and pregnancy did not help. My first deep breath of the monster made me gag.

“If you puke on me, I’m going to drop you on the monster and leave you there,” J.B. said.

“Your shirt already has blood on it,” I said, breathing shallowly and trying to suppress the urge to vomit. “What’s the difference?”

“Blood is cool and manly. Puke just makes you look like a loser,” J.B. said.

It was astounding that we were this close to the creature’s head and that it wasn’t trying to swat us away. Or wrap us up in silk. Or gobble us in midair. It was really that absorbed with Nathaniel.

My boots touched the monster’s head. J.B. stayed aloft, his hands under my shoulders ready to lift me away if the monster made any indication that it noticed I was there.

It didn’t move.

“Just stay right there,” I whispered to J.B.

“I told you, I’m staying with you,” he said.