The mark of Lucifer, my many-greats-grandfather.
I’d gotten the mark by using a sword made by Lucifer and tapping into some long-buried power inside me that tied me to his bloodline. I didn’t love having it. It identified me as one of Lucifer’s own, and there are many good reasons why an association with Lucifer is less than desirable. Starting with his list of enemies, which was far too extensive. And all of them liked to find ways to hurt him by hurting me.
Thanks to my unwanted family ties, I’d recently gotten sucked into a major diplomatic-mission-gone-wrong in one of the local faerie courts. In the process I’d managed to make a personal rival out of the faerie queen, Amarantha. I had enough on my plate without being chased down by angry fae every time I stepped outside of the house.
And now there was an envelope from Lucifer. I was sure that I wasn’t going to like what was inside. I tore the seal and withdrew the folded paper.
The paper was actually made of linen. Where does one even find linen paper?
I read the message inside, my eyebrows drawing closer together with every word. Then I tried to crumple the fancy linen into a tiny ball but succeeded only in making the letter look like it needed ironing.
I went down the hall to the kitchen and tried to slam the letter in the trash in a satisfying way. The expensive paper just drifted softly into the can.
Beezle was buried in a bowl of popcorn on the counter. And when I say “buried,” I mean he was actually buried. My gargoyle is about the size of an eight-week-old guinea pig. He fits in my coat pocket. So he can actually disappear into a serving bowl full of food—at least until he eats it all, which takes a surprisingly short amount of time.
He was facedown in the bowl. I could hear the sound of his stone jaws crunching away at the kernels on the bottom. The only visible parts of him were the claws on the tips of his feet. I grabbed one of those claws and yanked him out of the bowl, thus spilling popcorn onto the counter. He glared at me indignantly, swallowing the food stuffed in his beak.
“I’m in the middle of something here,” he said, flapping his little wings and wrenching his foot out of my grasp. He floated up to my eye level.
“Lucifer wants me to find the Red Shoes for him,” I said. “I don’t want to go on another mission for Lucifer that’s sure to go haywire. I don’t even know what the Red Shoes are.”
“What you don’t know could fill an encyclopedia. If people used encyclopedias anymore,” Beezle said.
I ignored him. “How am I supposed to find these things? And what makes these red shoes more special than any other pair of ruby slippers?”
“The Red Shoes are a legendary artifact,” Beezle said. “Nobody knows exactly how old they are, or where they originated. They are generally associated with the fae, but they didn’t make the shoes.”
“Oh, good. More faeries,” I muttered. “Why does Lucifer want them?”
“We-e-e-e-l-l-l,” Beezle said slowly. “Supposedly the wearer of the Red Shoes will be forced to dance without stopping.”
“Until?”
“Until nothing,” Beezle said. “Even if the wearer dies, or their limbs are cut off, the shoes will continue to dance.”
I had a horrible vision of amputated feet, still bloody at the ankles, gaily moving in the steps of a jig.
“So Lucifer is sending me after an ancient torture device disguised as attractive footwear,” I said.
“You’re surprised by this?” Beezle asked.
“No,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to get mixed up in any more faerie nonsense, do you?”
“Lucifer thinks it’s a good idea, or else he wouldn’t have asked you,” Beezle said.
“He didn’t ask,” I said through gritted teeth.
“He respects your strength. So he wants to test it,” Beezle said.
“I don’t test well,” I said.
“I don’t think you have a choice,” Beezle said.
“I have other stuff to do,” I said.
Beezle snorted. “Like what? Sit around and moon over your non-relationship with Gabriel?”
“I have souls to collect, as you well know,” I said, ignoring his jibe about Gabriel. My relationship with Gabriel was too complicated to think about. “Sacred duty as an Agent of Death and all that.”
“You have time in between soul pickups to investigate,” Beezle said. “You only collect one soul a day, at the most, and the rest of the time you’re at home driving me crazy when I want to watch Telemundo in the afternoon.”
“You can’t even speak Spanish,” I said.
“You don’t need to speak Spanish to understand telenovelas,” Beezle said. “They are awesome in any language. And most people think it’s a good idea to give Lucifer what he wants. Or else . . .”
“Yeah, I get it. Let’s not attract any more attention than I already have, right? I don’t even know where to start,” I said. “It’s not like Lucifer sent a picture of the shoes with that letter.”
“I can help with that,” Beezle said. He flew out of the kitchen, into the dining room and to the small table that I had set up as a computer desk next to the front door. He pushed the keyboard forward to make room for his belly on the table and then started tapping at the keys.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Best place for rumors is the Internet,” he said.
“You think the Internet is a reliable research tool to find the location of a mythical artifact?”
“It’s not a myth if Lucifer wants you to find it. He must know for sure that the Red Shoes are real. And you would be surprised at how many immortal creatures have Twitter accounts or hang out on message boards. Just because you’re too analog to enter the twenty-first century with the rest of us doesn’t mean that ancient beings disdain social media.”
“Just make with the Google,” I said. “You can mock my tech skills later.”
“What tech skills?” Beezle muttered, his claws flying rapidly from the keys to the mouse.
He had several browser windows open and clicked back and forth between them so quickly that I couldn’t begin to follow what was going on. I thought it wisest to back away slowly and wait for him to triumphantly present me with the required information.
Fifteen minutes later I stood in the kitchen, peering hopefully inside the refrigerator. No food had magically appeared there since the last time I looked.
“I got it!” Beezle said, flying into the kitchen with a slip of paper clutched in his little fist. “They’re right here in Chicago.”
“The shoes?” I asked. “Why would they be here?”
Beezle shrugged. “Because the creature that currently possesses them is living here temporarily.”
“And who—or what—would that creature be?”
“That would be Sammy Blue,” Beezle said. He seemed to enjoy teasing out the suspense.
“Are you going to tell me what’s so special about Sammy Blue?”
“Sammy Blue just happens to be an ambassador from Amarantha’s court. Her favorite ambassador, in point of fact. The one that she trusts with her most sensitive matters.”
Amarantha. Of course it would have something to do with Amarantha.
“So what’s this guy here for, anyway?” I asked. “Lucifer considers Chicago to be his territory and he’s not been very happy with Amarantha since she tried to have me killed. Isn’t she defying some ancient law about not crossing into another court’s borders without permission?”
“Technically, she’s not here. Her ambassador is. So they’ve got some wiggle room there, ancient-law-wise. Sammy is here to negotiate with some local witches. Amarantha apparently wants to retain their services,” Beezle said.
“Gee, you think she’s looking to get some spellthrower to put a curse on me?” I asked.
“Probably. That’s the kind of effect you have on people.”
“When I go to see Sammy Blue about these shoes, what are the chances that he’ll go into a berserker rage once he sees me?”
“Hmm,” Beezle said, tapping his finger on his chin. “You humiliated and disrespected his beloved monarch in a very public way. Then, when Amarantha tried to have you killed by proxy in the Maze you didn’t even have the decency to die there the way everyone else in history has done.”
“Yes, I’m annoying that way. I refuse to roll over and let some bully in a designer gown step on me.”
“It is annoying to royalty. They’re used to getting their way. Especially the fae.”
“In summary, diplomacy is unlikely to be an effective tactic for extracting the shoes from Sammy Blue.”
Beezle gave me an exaggerated look of surprise. “Was diplomacy even an option? I just thought you would do what you usually do—insult everyone present, break the furniture, set the building on fire.”
I had no snappy comeback for that one. Beezle had listed the extent of my skill set.
“What kind of a name is Sammy Blue, anyway? He sounds like a small-time drug dealer with a toothpick hanging from his mouth.”
“Sammy is short for some flowery fae name that starts with ‘Sam.’ I can’t remember it exactly. And Blue is a nickname that Amarantha gave him. See, Sammy likes to strangle people who make him unhappy.”
“He likes to see them turn blue,” I said.
“Yes,” Beezle said. “He likes to see them turn blue verrrry slowly. As in hours and days kind of slowly.”
“Great. So I’ve got to take the Red Shoes from a faerie psychopath who enjoys killing people by degrees and already has a reason to dislike me.”
“Pretty much,” Beezle said. “I’ll get your coat.”
I pulled on my black wool overcoat in defense against Chicago’s winter wind. Beezle put a scarf around his head, horns, and belly in a complicated wrap that made him look like a gargoyle mummy. His stony hawk’s eyes peered out from layers of brightly colored knitting.