Black Night Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  PRAISE FOR BLACK WINGS

  “A fun, fast ride through the gritty streets of Chicago, Black Wings has it all: a gutsy heroine just coming into her power, badass bad guys, a sexy supernatural love interest and a scrappy gargoyle sidekick. Highly recommended.”

  —Nancy Holzner, author of Hellforged

  “An entertaining urban fantasy starring an intriguing heroine . . . The soul-eater serial-killer mystery adds to an engaging Chicago joyride as courageous Madeline fears this unknown adversary but goes after the lethal beast.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Fast action, plenty of demons and a hint of mystery surrounding the afterlife make for an entertaining urban fantasy populated by an assortment of interesting characters.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “Henry shows that she is up to the challenge of debuting in a crowded genre. The extensive background of her imaginative world is well integrated with the action-packed plot, and the satisfying conclusion leaves the reader primed for the next installment.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “I love the world-building . . . The take on demons and angels is sufficiently different to separate Black Wings from the recent spate of tales in that milieu . . . I do recommend Black Wings if just for the unusual world and enjoyable plot and characters.”

  —Errant Dreams

  “Readers will enjoy a fast-paced adventure with an interesting cast, especially Beezle, the gargoyle, and be ready and waiting for a future still yet unwritten. Pick up your copy of Black Wings today, and stay tuned for Black Night.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “A fast-paced first novel . . . Black Wings is a lot of fun.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Henry does an excellent job of unveiling the first layers of her unique world and its fascinating inhabitants. There’s plenty of kick-butt action and intriguing twists to ensure that this story grabs you from the very first page. One to watch!”

  —Romantic Times (4 stars)

  “The story was a nonstop action blast full of smart-alecky gargoyle guardians, devilishly handsome (and enigmatic) love interests, arrogant demons, wicked witches and more jaw-dropping revelations than a Jerry Springer show. I barely had time to catch my breath between chapters.”

  —All Things Urban Fantasy

  “Fast-paced, action-packed and hard-core—breathing new life into the vast genre of urban fantasy . . . Black Wings is intense, dark and full of surprises.”

  —Rex Robot Reviews

  “Amazing . . . Henry’s pacing is incredible and keeps you absorbed; plus the characterization is fantastic . . . I strongly urge all you [urban fantasy] fans to get this book!”

  —Read All Over Reviews

  “I finished this book in one sitting and will definitely look out for more by this author.”

  —Bibliophilic Book Blog

  “A fast-paced book that I had a hard time putting down . . . I can’t wait to read Black Night and find out where Gabriel, J.B., Antares and Beezle all stand in Maddy’s world.”

  —A Romance Review

  “Black Wings was one of the better beginnings to a series that hit every point that it needed to hit. This is a series that I plan to continue and will continue to enjoy if Christina Henry maintains this caliber of writing.”

  —Books By Their Cover

  “It isn’t often that a first book grabs your attention and refuses to let you go. Christina Henry’s book was that book for me. I loved every minute of this newest paranormal story about one woman’s struggle to figure out her place in the world when everything around her seems to be changing.”

  —Fantasy Romance Writers

  “I read Black Wings in one day, and I loved spending that time with Madeline (and Beezle). I recommend Christina Henry to readers who enjoy the dark humor of Ilona Andrews’s Kate Daniels series and the demon politics of Stacia Kane’s Megan Chase series.”

  —Fantasy Literature

  Ace Books by Christina Henry

  BLACK WINGS

  BLACK NIGHT

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  BLACK NIGHT

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / August 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Tina Raffaele.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-52923-2

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Mom and Dad, with much love

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Much gratitude is due to Danielle Stockley, editor extraordinaire, who not only helped make Black Night a better book but patiently answered all my crazy questions. I could not do this without you, Danielle!

  Lots of thanks to my publicist, Rosanne Romanello, for her dedication and hard work on behalf of the world of Black Wings.

  Thanks to Kris Keller for his amazing cover art.

  A very big thank-you to Nancy Holzner for her generous supp
ort and guidance. You rock, Nancy!

  A special shout-out to Dimo, Cynthia and the rest of the crew at Einstein’s on Southport, who kept me in bagels and coffee while I wrote this book.

  Many thanks to Sarah Kaiser, my “study buddy,” who listened to all my crazy ideas and thought they sounded great even if they made no sense.

  Finally, I could not do this without the love and support of my husband, Chris, and son, Henry. I am so grateful for both of you every day.

  1

  I STOOD IN THE ALLEY BETWEEN DAMEN AND WOLCOTT in the recently trendy neighborhood of Wicker Park. There was a parking lot filled with cars directly across the alley from my position. It was bordered on the other three sides by four-story apartment buildings. Behind the wall that I leaned on, the clubs, bars and restaurants of Division Street did a brisk trade in liquor and lust for the upscale singles who had purchased all the new condos in the area. The cold November night was no deterrent to business. After all, if you lived in Chicago, then you understood that there are only two seasons—winter and construction. If you let a little cold slow you down, then you should probably move somewhere else.

  I shifted a little, flexing my toes inside my boots in a vain effort to keep them warm. When I had died and been reborn a month ago, my human heart had been replaced by an angel’s heartstone. As a result, I was usually a little warmer than ordinary human beings, since angels’ hearts are made of the sun. But a half angel’s body is still no match for the Windy City.

  My gargoyle, Beezle, poked his head out of the lapel of my wool peacoat. He’s the color of stone, about the size of an overweight guinea pig, and he’s got little wings, the better to flap around my head and annoy me with.

  Before we had left the house he had trimmed a childsized scarf for his own use. He had a small strip of rainbowcolored wool wrapped around each horn and a longer piece wound several times around his lower face. The edge of his beak poked through the material. He mumbled something through the cloth and I glared at him.

  “I can’t understand you when your mouth is buried like that,” I said.

  Beezle narrowed his cat eyes at me and commenced unwinding his muffler. He huffed melodramatically before speaking. “I said, have you got anything to eat?”

  “How can you possibly be hungry? You ate a whole bowl of popcorn before we left the house.”

  “But I am. And I’m cold. And I want a doughnut,” he whined.

  “Stop wriggling. We’re supposed to be undercover here. In point of fact, you’re not supposed to be here at all. You’re supposed to be at home, being a home guardian, like all the other gargoyles.”

  “Do you think I would trust your life to him?” Beezle snapped.

  “He can hear you, gargoyle,” Gabriel said dryly.

  My tenant and bodyguard, Gabriel, had been so quiet I’d almost forgotten he was there. Almost. He’s a little difficult to overlook—six foot plus, dark hair, dark eyes, the face of an angel. I mean that literally. Gabriel was half-angel.

  Have I mentioned that I am in love with him and he with me, and that our love is doomed, in a really melodramatic we-will-both-be-killed-if-we-ever-act-on-our-feelings sort of way?

  I’m a half angel, too. My father is Azazel, a fallen angel and a chief of the Grigori, a right-hand man of Lucifer himself. I’d discovered this tidbit only recently, having spent most of my life believing my father to be an ordinary deadbeat (or possibly dead) human dad.

  Beezle had been a little unreasonable about my safety ever since I’d had my human heart torn out by a nephilim—long story—and now refused to let me leave the house without him. You’d think the fact that I’d managed to come back from the dead would count in my favor.

  Azazel’s orders stated that Gabriel was not supposed to leave my side when I was out of the house. I had spent the last month with a beautiful bodyguard at my elbow and an overweight gargoyle hanging off me like a baby orangutan. It was making my job a little difficult—very difficult, in fact. It’s not easy being unobtrusive with those two around.

  When I’m not Azazel’s daughter and Beezle’s doughnut enabler, I’m an Agent of death. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. Every week I get a list of names, places and times. I go to the appointed place at the appointed time, pick up the soul and bring it to the Door. At the Door the soul chooses whether to pass on to whatever is behind the Door (don’t ask me; I’m not allowed to know) or to stay and haunt the earth forever.

  Most of the time my job is as straightforward as it sounds. I’m kind of like a UPS delivery guy. I don’t know what’s in the boxes and I don’t care. It’s just my job to deliver them on time and to the correct location. I also have to file paperwork—lots and lots of paperwork, and the forms are annoying and redundant. Being an Agent of death isn’t such a great gig, really, but it’s an inherited job (I got mine when my mom died) and one that doesn’t go away until you take the trip to the Door yourself.

  So there I was, a week before Thanksgiving, shivering in thirty-degree weather and thinking longingly of my crocheted blankets and a cup of hot chocolate, waiting to pick up a soul who was scheduled to die at 1:27 A.M. somewhere in this alley.

  Beezle carefully rewrapped his scarf around his chubby neck. It draped over his wings in the back.

  “I hope that this isn’t one of those disgusting alley murders,” he said conversationally. “The last one put me off my feed.”

  “Is that even possible?” Gabriel murmured for my ears only, and I smiled. Then I straightened a little, pushing away from the wall. Gabriel came to attention beside me. “What is it?”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about hacked-up body parts this time, Beezle,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can see the vampire.” I nodded at the innocuous-looking man making his way across the parking lot.

  He looked like any moderately successful single guy out on a Saturday night. His hair was blond and stylishly cut, his clothes were good without being flashy, and his face was sort of ordinary-handsome. You wouldn’t know he was a vampire, which is good for their kind. The most successful hunters are the ones with the best camouflage.

  He crossed out of the lot and into the alley, his footsteps slowing as he approached us. We were tucked unobtrusively in a little four-foot depression in the building, one of those architectural oddities that seem to have no explanation. The building went straight across and then it dipped in, like someone had planned to put a closet there, and then resumed its normal course. It was just enough to keep us from being seen by anyone who passed by.

  The vampire stopped dead, a few feet away. I saw his nostrils flare.

  “I know you’re there, Agent,” he said.

  I stepped out of the depression and into the light of the one yellow streetlamp that hung over the parking lot. Gabriel followed and stood behind my shoulder. I said nothing. The vampire’s eyes widened a little when he saw Gabriel.

  He smirked. “You must be the famous Madeline Black, the only Agent with a guard dog.”

  If the vampire thought he could make a little sport for himself by getting a rise out of Gabriel, he had another think coming. Gabriel is the type that burns slow—so slow, I wonder sometimes if he’s got a pulse.

  “What is your business, vampire?” I asked.

  “If you are here, then you know my business,” he said. He raised an eyebrow at me. “You will not interfere?”

  “You know I am bound against it,” I said, and there was a little shivering of magic as I said it, as if the source of my power was affirming the truth of that statement.

  That was one of the suck things about being an Agent. I saw a lot of death, and most of those deaths would break my heart if I let them. Stupid accidents, horrific murders, deaths of children and young mothers and college kids before their time. But it was not for me to judge which lives should be saved. If their name was on my list, then their death was fated and I was bound not to interfere. I’d learned early on to adopt a circle-of-life
attitude for my own sanity. It didn’t mean that I liked it.

  The vampire sidled a little closer to me, and I could almost feel Gabriel’s hackles rise. He loves me, he can’t have me, but he does not like other men coming near me. If Gabriel had his way, there would be a thirty-six-inch manfree radius around me at all times.

  “I have heard stories of your beauty,” the vampire purred. His nostrils flared again. “I see that they are not exaggerated.”

  I crossed my arms. My beauty is so not legendary. “Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck? Get lost. I’m not the helpless victim you’re looking for.”

  I saw a glint of fang as he stepped closer. He seemed hypnotized by some scent. “But the blood of angels . . . I have always wanted . . . and you are Lucifer’s own . . .”

  I opened my palm in front of me, extended my will, and a little ball of blue flame about the size of a baseball hovered above my hand. “I understand that fire is unpleasant for vampires.”

  The vampire hissed and backed away several feet. He shook his head, seeming to come out of a trance. For a moment I thought he would try again, but then he appeared to think better of it.

  “Perhaps you are right,” he said, regaining his composure. “There must be easy prey awaiting me if you are here.”

  I closed my fist and the ball of nightfire disappeared, leaving behind a lingering trace of sulfur. I flicked my fingers at the vampire. “Move along, then.”