And who all looked very surprised to see me standing there.
“Impossible,” Sammy Blue said.
“Your eyes,” one of the witches said. “There are stars in your eyes.”
“I know,” I said, and let my magic fly.
The air was filled with the light of the sun, a light like a nuclear weapon exploding. Four sets of arms flew up in the air to block that light, to attempt in vain to hide from it.
The Red Shoes fell to the ground.
I tamped down the magic that flowed crazily in my blood now, put it back in a box for another day. That power was too intoxicating—and too close to Lucifer for my liking. The light in the room returned to normal.
Beezle poked his head out. “So you managed to melt them all without setting the room on fire. Congratulations.”
“Yeah,” I said, a little breathless. I stared at the Red Shoes. They could be mine. I could be something great and terrible with those shoes. My enemies would suffer like none had suffered before.
I shook my head from side to side, pushing away the spell. Apparently the shoes had decided that since I wasn’t willing to put them on, they would tempt me another way.
It was disturbing to think of a pair of red ballet slippers with something like sentient thought.
“Are we taking those home?” Beezle asked, giving me a beady-eyed look that told me he’d guessed some of what had passed through my mind.
“Yes,” I said. “They’re what I came for.”
I looked around for something to cover my hands so I could carry the slippers. There was an empty plastic bag attached to one of the bags that must have belonged to the witches. She probably had a dog.
Had a dog. I’d just killed her, and she would never go home to her dog again.
My breath came in sharp gasps suddenly, my heart pounding. I’d killed a human. Three humans, as a matter of fact.
Beezle clambered out of my pocket and up to my face. He put his little clawed hands on my cheeks.
“They were going to kill you,” he said.
“Yes, I know,” I said.
“You had no choice,” he said.
I nodded, swallowing the tears that threatened to spill over.
“You’re still yourself. You’re still Maddy Black,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, getting hold of myself. “Okay.”
I picked up the slippers carefully with the plastic bag and wrapped it around the shoes. I jammed the shoes deep in my pocket. Their proximity made me feel a little sick. Then I picked up my sword and went to the elevator.
The giant whatever that had knocked me in the head rumbled out of the bedroom. He looked sort of like a troll, big and lumpy and gray.
He looked at me, then at the ash that remained of his master.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” Beezle said.
The troll turned around and went back to the bedroom.
The elevator door opened, and I went home.
I went straight to my bedroom, took out an empty shoe box from underneath the bed, and placed the plastic-wrapped slippers inside. Then I tucked the box into an old suitcase that I never used because I never went anywhere and put the suitcase in the back of my closet. The menacing aura around the shoes was hidden from me, and the low thrum of nausea subsided. I went back downstairs to wait. Beezle was already camped out in the middle of the living room couch, watching an infomercial for some kind of ab machine. A giant bowl of potato chips sat next to him on the cushion.
I sat on the front porch in the starlight, the sky bleeding midnight blue around the edges as the sun rose, and I waited. I knew he was coming. I could feel him. The tattoo on my palm wriggled in anticipation.
And suddenly he was there, golden blond hair gleaming in the light from the streetlamps, hands tucked in the pockets of the long coat that hid his wings from mortal view. He was older than the moon and the sun, but he looked ten years younger than me. The only thing that gave him away was the ancient secrets in his eyes. He joined me on the porch, companionably slinging an arm around my shoulders.
“I hear tell that you have managed to quash another threat to my kingdom,” Lucifer said.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how you hear these things so fast. Do you have someone following me with a camera?”
“Perhaps I have a crystal ball,” he said.
“Perhaps you do,” I replied. I took a deep breath, girding myself for what was to come. I’d already decided as soon as I’d touched the shoes. Now I just needed to follow through.
“And I also understand that you have obtained the object which I was seeking,” he said.
“How about this?” I said slowly. “Finders keepers.”
Lucifer looked at me steadily. “You are not in a position to keep those shoes from me should I decide that I wish to take them from you.”