Free Black Howl by Christina Henry Page A

your kind.”
    He turned away from me, crossed the clearing and fell to his knees. He raised his face to the sky and howled.
    The cubs, who had been standing so still I’d almost forgotten about them, began to howl in unison. Their eyes were still blank and uncomprehending, but their little voices rose in the same grief as Jude’s.
    Samiel, Gabriel, Nathaniel, Beezle and I stood and waited, outside of the circle of their sadness. Inside my heart, I howled with them.
    Once we started moving again we were faced with a different problem. The cubs would follow a direct order, but only if I told them to. They wouldn’t listen to anyone else.
    “You could make them do anything,” Beezle said. “They would all do the Macarena in sync if you asked them to.”
    “Oh, yeah, because a troop of dancing brainwashed kids would be so helpful right now,” I said as we trampedthrough the woods. Jude was leading us back to the site of the original attack.
    “Just trying to lighten the mood,” Beezle said. “Everyone is so grim.”
    “Well, gosh, Beezle, why would we be grim? We’ve had a swell adventure here in the woods.”
    “You don’t
know
Wade is dead,” Beezle said.
    “He might as well be. I don’t know where that portal went, and now I never will. And we had no other clues to go on.”
    “Sure you do. The charcarion demons.”
    I stopped and stared at Beezle, who was perched on my shoulder and looking incredibly smug.
    “The charcarion demons,” I repeated. “And they are significant…why?”
    “How many cinnamon rolls will you give me if I tell you?”
    “No one in our house needs cinnamon rolls. Especially you.”
    “
I’m
not the one on a diet. I think I deserve some compensation for information that is obviously important to you.”
    “Just spill it, Beezle, or I’ll replace all your Cheetos with whole-grain crackers.”
    He puffed himself up indignantly. “You wouldn’t dare.”
    “Try me.”
    “Okay, okay. Charcarion demons are found in only two courts of the fallen.”
    “And those are…”
    “Abezethibod…”
    “Bless you,” I said.
    “And Focalor.”
    “Focalor,” I said, somehow not surprised by this information. “What’s he up to now? I thought he was being punished by Lucifer.”
    Beezle shrugged. “I dunno. That’s for you to figure out.”
    “He definitely has an ax to grind with me,” I said slowly.
    “Yeah, since you publicly humiliated him when you snuffed out his rebellion in front of Amarantha’s court.”
    “Why do you say it like that? Was I supposed to let him tear Lucifer’s kingdom apart and endanger millions of innocent people?”
    “No, but he definitely wants your head on a stick.”
    “He’s going to have to get in line,” I said, thinking of all the scary creatures who wanted to squash me. I shook my head. That was not a productive line of thought.
    “And he’s always had a grievance with Lucifer—or at least for the last three or four millennia or so.”
    “Why is that?” I asked.
    “Haven’t you ever wondered why Focalor looks like a demon even though he’s fallen?”
    “Well, yeah,” I admitted. “I have wondered.”
    “That was his punishment for defying Lucifer the last time.”
    “What were they arguing about?”
    “Focalor wanted to go home,” Beezle said, pointing a claw skyward. “He was gathering a contingent of fallen to ask for forgiveness.”
    “Why didn’t Lucifer just let them go?”
    Beezle snorted. “And take half his base of power with them? Lucifer had just established his own kingdom. No one was allowed to have second thoughts.”
    “So Focalor has a lot of reasons to resent Lucifer,” I said thoughtfully. “And not only are the wolves friends to me, but they were negotiating with Lucifer again.”
    I glanced at Jude, who was silently leading us through the woods. Maybe he was right. Maybe all the wolves’ troubles were Lucifer’s fault. And mine.
    We entered the clearing that was the site of the kidnapping