Free Black Spring by Christina Henry

awning in front of us.
    The intense craving that had seized me earlier had by this time faded, but ice cream would still help my mood. There is no mood that cannot be improved by a giant sundae.
    Nathaniel expressed no interest in eating. He watched me enthusiastically attack my ice cream, all the while wearing what I thought of as his I-do-not-comprehend-humans expression.
    “Don’t you like ice cream?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “Most angels do not see the appeal of sugar. It does not seem to affect us as it does humans.”
    I thought back and realized I’d never seen Gabriel or Nathaniel eat anything dessert-like.
    “Is it because of differences in body chemistry?” I wondered aloud. “Or because angels have such long lives that simple things become boring?”
    “Perhaps some of both,” he said. “I have often wished I could take comfort in small pleasures, as you do.”
    Somehow it had never occurred to me that Nathaniel might have some of the same longings I did, a desire to be more human. Part of this was because he had expressed contempt for humanity so often that I’d assumed he would never give up any aspect of the “superiority” of angels. The changes that occurred since his magical legacy had been released still surprised me.
    “Well, there’s no time like the present to start learning,” I said.
    I scooped a big spoonful of vanilla ice cream mixed with hot fudge and peanut butter sauce and held it out to him, smiling.
    He looked at me, then at the spoon, then back at me again. The smile faded from my face. Suddenly the action seemed fraught with implication. Something shifted in his eyes. There was a light and a heat that was not there before. My hand seemed frozen in place, and everything inside me stilled. I could not take my eyes from his mouth as it moved toward the spoon.
    “Ms. Madeline Black?” a voice asked from somewhere above my left shoulder.
    I dropped the spoon to the table with a clatter, the spell broken. Several patrons glanced over at the noise and my face reddened. The shop seating area was small and the tables were stacked beside one another with barely enough room to maneuver through the aisles so privacy was completely nonexistent.
    Nathaniel calmly wiped the ice cream from the table with a napkin as I turned to glare at the person who had interrupted us.
    It was a tall man with blond hair curling over his brow and the tops of his ears. His eyes were a brilliant green, like the poisonous shade of the river, and he was dressed like an Ermenegildo Zegna ad. There was something about him that struck me as familiar. In his right hand he held a creamy white envelope with a seal I recognized on the back. The snake tattoo on my palm twitched.
    “Whatever you’ve got, I don’t want it,” I said. I pushed the half-eaten sundae away from me, any pleasure I took in the moment sucked out by the presence of a messenger from my second-least-favorite relation.
    “Lord Lucifer expected you to respond thus and instructed me to wait while you read his missive,” the messenger said in a carrying voice.
    If anyone had not been looking at us before, they certainly were now, especially after they heard the word “Lucifer.” Some people looked confused, like they thought the guy was kidding. Others looked offended, frightened or suspicious. They may not know for sure whether Lucifer existed, but everyone in Chicago knew there were bad things loose in the world.
    “What’s the matter with you?” I hissed at the messenger. “Go outside, for the love of Pete. I’ll be out in a second.”
    He looked doubtful, like I was going to try to slip away from him somehow. “Lord Lucifer instructed me to—”
    “Shut. Up,” I said through my teeth as I came to my feet. All I wanted was for him to stop talking and everyone to stop looking. Pretty soon someone would put my face together with the video footage of me destroying the vampires at Soldier Field, and then who knew what would happen?
    I