Free Black Night by Christina Henry

the basket at Jewel—and he’d also missed his usual morning nap in his perch.
    “No,” I said vaguely. “It doesn’t sound like werewolf language.”
    “And what would you know about werewolf language?” Beezle grumbled.
    I ignored his jibe. Normally I enjoyed sparring with Beezle when he was grumpy, but I was worried about what Lucifer would say when he discovered that I had reestablished relations with the werewolves of Wisconsin. Would he be pleased? Would he be furious? I couldn’t care less if he was pleased, since getting Lucifer’s approval was not high on my to-do list. But I really didn’t want him angry with me. I had enough problems without being in the soup with the Prince of Darkness.
    Gabriel had tried to warn me. I’d seen the little shake of the head, telling me not to do what I was about to do. But I had done it anyway. I understood that I didn’t know my way around this world yet, and that I needed guidance. But it chafed when I felt like someone else was always making my decisions for me.
    “Of course, decisions don’t seem to be my best thing,” I muttered to myself.
    “What? What?” Beezle shouted. “You’ll have to speak up. I’m an old gargoyle and I’m feeling faint from lack of nourishment.”
    “Oh, for crying out loud,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Gabriel, let’s take this baby home so that he can eat.”
    “Popcorn!” Beezle said.
    “We’ll see,” I replied, moving toward the place where the alley emptied back out to Nelson. I glanced behind me to see if Gabriel was following, and then stopped.
    Gabriel wasn’t there.

5
     
    “GABRIEL?” I CALLED. MAYBE HE WAS JUST OUT OF sight, around the corner of the T-junction. “Gabriel, where are you?”
    “That fool probably got distracted by something and wandered away. The two of you seem to think you’re investigators,” Beezle muttered. “He might have found a clue.”
    “He would have told me,” I said, jogging down the length of the alley to the junction and looking down. He wasn’t there.
    “Maybe he followed the wolves,” Beezle said. His tone said that he was supremely unconcerned with Gabriel’s whereabouts.
    “He would have told me,” I repeated, starting to get angry. “He wouldn’t leave me, not for a second. He’s still feeling guilty for not being there when Antares attacked. And Azazel would have Gabriel’s head on a shelf if he walked away from me and I got hurt.”
    I ran down the alley in the other direction, toward Belmont, calling Gabriel’s name. How could he just disappear into thin air like that? We’d been standing there with the wolves. If something had happened to Gabriel, one of us should have noticed.
    “He wouldn’t leave me,” I repeated, as I ran around the block, my head twisting this way and that. “Gabriel! Gabriel!”
    I must have appeared a little unhinged because a couple of new moms walking their babies in the winter sunshine pulled their $800 Bugaboos out of my way as I went by.
    “You’re frightening the natives,” Beezle said.
    I stopped and glared down at him as I came back to the mouth of the alley. “Maybe they’re scared of the ugly little monster hanging out of my coat.”
    Beezle looked affronted. “I’ll have you know I am a very handsome gargoyle.”
    “According to wh—” I said, and then the breath was ripped from my body as something very large and very heavy crashed into me.
    My attacker and I careened into the alley and smashed into a metal Dumpster. I cried out in pain as a protruding piece of metal pierced through my coat and into my back. Hot blood ran down my spine as I was punched in the face again and again by a heavy fist and I was nearly blinded by pain.
    I didn’t have time to think, to try to fight back. I had an impression of boundless strength holding me down, muscled bare arms, hot breath panting, mad green eyes . . . and wings. White feathers fell all around us as I tried to push with my hands, kick with my legs, to snap