Nathaniel looked down. “Yes.”
“Is there any such thing as a good demon?” I asked.
“I have never met one,” Nathaniel said. “Why?”
“I’ve got a lot of excess rage to get rid of,” I said, blasting one of the demons. It went up in flames in the middle of Michigan Avenue, right in front of the Art Institute. “It was a little anticlimactic, scorching all of the vampires in one shot.”
The other demons tried scuttling out of sight, but they were too slow. A moment later they were ablaze.
“Madeline,” Nathaniel said, grabbing my wrist before I set anything else on fire. “Stop. This is not like you. You do not burn ants with a magnifying glass.”
“Why not?” I said. “I have the powers of a god, and nothing good has ever come from a demon. You said so yourself. I’m just saving myself the trouble of having to hunt them down at a later date.”
“They were leaving Chicago,” Nathaniel said.
“So that they can go and harm someone else in some other city,” I said fiercely, yanking my hand away. “When does it end, Nathaniel? When is it okay for us to take the fight to them? Why do we always have to be on the defensive, waiting for them to kill somebody, or hundreds of somebodies, first before we’ll do something about it?”
“Do not start crossing those lines unless you want to live in Lucifer’s kingdom,” Nathaniel said.
I heard Gabriel’s voice in my ear, from long ago and far away, saying, Lord Lucifer has a way of making choices seem gray.
And I heard Beezle, too, saying, Dark side.
Was I crossing the line by taking out a few demons just because they’d never done anything to me directly? Or was I just ridding the world of some vermin?
“I thought you wanted to find Therion,” Nathaniel said.
“I do,” I said.
“The longer you spend toying with these creatures, the more likely it is that he will escape, and then you will never discover the identity of his cohort,” Nathaniel said.
“Fine,” I said. I felt like a chastised child, and I sulked as we flew along. I was still tracing the signature of Therion’s power through the city.
As we passed over Daley Plaza I felt the tug of my trace pulling me downward. I should have known he would be here, where it had all started.
I landed in front of the Picasso statue. The plaza looked like the war zone it had been a few days earlier. Everywhere I turned there were coffee cups, sandwich wrappers, coiled scarves and lost mittens, open briefcases. Blood. Lots and lots of blood.
I stood still for a moment, sending my senses outward, looking for the source of the signature I had traced.
“There,” I said, pointing toward the Washington Blue Line stop. “He’s underground, and moving fast. He’s using the subway tunnels.”
Nathaniel looked at my shiny new wings. “Those won’t be of much used to us belowground. And fire in a close space is a dangerous prospect.”
“I know,” I said, drawing my sword. “Don’t worry. I know how to behead a vampire.”
We approached the stairs that led into the station. I sent out a little pulse to make sure that nothing waited for us at the bottom of the steps.
There was nothing there. I stepped onto the first stair. Nathaniel tried to object, as usual.
“Madeline, let me…”
“I just barbecued a stadium full of vampires and you’re still trying to make me walk behind you? What’s next, foot binding?” I said, and jogged down the stairs before he could do anything about it.
I heard him muttering something about chivalry and modern women but I didn’t ask for clarification.
We entered the station. The vending box for fare cards had been knocked to the floor, and two of the turnstiles had been torn out.
The splattered brains of the former attendant had dried on the window of the CTA personnel’s box.
I moved cautiously through the station to the stairs that led down to the platform. I sent another pulse of power out, and this time I didn’t detect Therion at all.
“He’s cloaking himself,” I murmured. “Even a vampire couldn’t have gotten out of range so quickly.”
Nathaniel held his hand up so he could listen.
“There are several creatures moving in the tunnel below,” he said.
“They could be rats,” I said. “The regular Chicago kind.”
“The ‘Chicago kind’ are far from regular,” Nathaniel said. “I have seen the size of those rodents, and there is nothing ordinary about them. However, I can tell the difference between a rat and a vampire.”
“Can you tell how far away they are?” I asked.
Nathaniel listened again. “Not precisely. The tunnel makes strange echoes.”
“Yeah, it does,” I said, thinking of the way that the El sometimes sounded like it was coming from the south when it was actually coming from the north. “Let’s go down.”
“No fire,” Nathaniel said. “Even if you are startled.”
“I am not a pyromaniac,” I said. “I only set things on fire because it’s expedient.”
Nathaniel gave me a look.
“I already agreed, all right?” I waved my sword around. “I’ll only kill them with the pointy stick.”
The steps to the platform were wide enough to walk side by side, so of course Nathaniel made sure we were joined at the hip. I fully expected to find a platoon of vamps waiting to leap upon us as soon as we got to the bottom of the stairs, and was a little disappointed to find the platform empty.