Blood and Feathers

by Lou Morgan

  “One thing you are not is alone,” said a voice from beside her, and she opened her eyes to see Gwyn. He was reaching out his hands for hers, but almost instinctively, she edged away from him. He dropped his hand. “You fear me. You shouldn’t.”

  “Yes, I should.”

  “Mallory’s been talking. He never can keep his mouth shut.” He sighed. “Alice, do you know what will happen to him if he makes another mistake?”

  “I...”

  “He will Fall. Gabriel will find him, and he will cut his wings and toss him into hell. And he will burn as he Falls, like they always do. And all that is good in him – all his hope, all his heart – will burn with him, and when he’s done, do you think they will welcome their new brother, the Fallen? The brother who has sent so many of them crawling back to the pit, time after time after time? The brother who had what they have so long envied... and threw it away?”

  “I’m going to say... no?”

  “No, Alice. They will take Mallory, and they will turn the Twelve loose on him, and they will torture him and they will break him. And the Mallory that you know – that you think you know – will be gone. He will be one of them: hopeless, heartless, helpless. For all time.”

  “Why are you telling me this? Why not him?”

  “Mallory knows. Of course he knows. His problem is that he doesn’t always understand; and when he does, he doesn’t always care. I simply don’t want you to be naive. You feel some kind of... bond with him. It’s only natural, given his gift, and, I suspect, the true nature of your own. You see me as something altogether different, and I can understand that...”

  “You let them kill my dad,” Alice blurted out. She tried to stop herself, but the words somehow tumbled out. Gwyn sat watching her for a moment, and then smiled.

  “Things are not always as straightforward as you might like them to be. When the time is right, I’ll explain. But not now. Until then, you will just have to trust me.” He stood up, and the subject was closed. “Everything has been quiet while I was gone?”

  “I suppose so. He hasn’t let me outside since you went, if that’s what you mean.”

  “And Vhnori?”

  “I think he was sick of being cooped up in here. He left, not long after you. It’s just been me and Mallory. And the mice.” She suppressed a shiver, then looked around. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. But Vhnori isn’t far away... and he’s getting closer. It seems like there’s something he wants to tell us.” Gwyn folded his arms and stared at the door.

  Alice shook her head. “Whatever.”

  As it turned out, Gwyn was right. It was only a couple of minutes before Vin banged on the door. He looked startled when Gwyn opened it, but it didn’t take him long to pull himself together. “There’s been another one poking around,” was all he said.

  Gwyn frowned at him. “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. Everyone’s talking about it.”

  “‘Everyone.’ Where, exactly, is this ‘everyone’?”

  “I was with Mallory. The Halfway.”

  “Again?”

  “Hey, I only went there to try and keep him out of trouble.”

  “And what did he go for?”

  “Answers, he said.”

  “Give me strength.” This, Gwyn muttered under his breath, his jaw clenched. He glared at Vin, who was trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.

  Alice stared at the two of them. “What now?”

  He didn’t answer her, and sailed through the door, leaving Vin pressed against the frame. He stayed long enough to say: “Stay here. We’ll be back – honest. Just... just stay!”

  This was the last straw. Alice had had enough. She would not be left sitting around like some kind of hostage, waiting for everyone to come back and fill her in – or not – on what was happening. She tried the door. It was locked. Of course it was locked. But the windows... she eyed them for a moment. They were both small, yes, and one of them was more or less blocked by spreading moss, long-dead leaves and other debris blown into the opening by the wind, but the one above the sink looked like it might just be a possibility. She hopped up onto the worktop and edged across, balancing one foot on either side of the taps. The window was still at shoulder height, even now, but if she could only get it open...

  She lifted the latch and gave it a shove. Nothing. Another shove – which nearly sent her toppling back off the sink – and it made a strangled creak and showered her feet with dirt.

  “Come on, you piece of crap,” she muttered, giving it one final push... and it gave, swinging out and banging back against the wall.

  She peered outside. As she had expected, the window looked out onto the graveyard. It was quite a drop on the other side, and there was nothing she could climb onto on the way down, but at least the landing looked like it would be soft: a verge of moss and long grass – and the occasional crisp packet – ran directly beneath her vantage point. She hauled herself up onto the window ledge, and dropped.

  Somewhere between letting go of the window and her feet hitting the ground, it occurred to her that she wasn’t going to be able to get back inside. Nor, she realised, did she have any idea where Gwyn, Vhnori and Mallory were. This could, she admitted, be a bit of a problem. And the more she thought about it, the darker the churchyard grew; the deeper the shadows became.

  “Great plan, A,” she told herself. “Way to get yourself killed.”

  Still, there was no point standing in the shadows, waiting for something to come at her. If she headed to the main road, she might get an idea of where they had gone – might even be able to catch sight of them.

  She crunched her way down the path running around the church, found the gate, and stepped out onto the pavement.

  There was no sign of them. It had been a vain hope, she knew, but one she’d really wanted to hang on to. So, with no clue where they were going, and no way of getting back into Mallory’s little room, she was stuck. She kicked her toes against the wall in irritation. What good would these ‘gifts’ she was supposed to have do her if they couldn’t help her find where she was going? She kicked out at the wall again, then stopped. Gwyn had known that Vin was coming, like he could sense him. And hadn’t she been able to smell Gwyn – that peculiar cold, clean smell – before she had even opened the door of her house? It was worth a try, at least...

  Feeling faintly ridiculous, she breathed in the air of the street. Thankfully there was no-one around to see her sniffing like a lunatic – only a fox, which paused midway across the road to stare at her before moving on. She concentrated, as best she could. She could smell the moss and the wet grass of the graveyard, and the half-empty beer bottle standing further down the wall. That wasn’t exactly going to help. She tried again, hoping to catch that same cold scent of Gwyn’s and turning her head this way and that. She looked like an idiot, she knew she did, and she was just about to give up when suddenly there was... something. It wasn’t what she was expecting – and she wasn’t even sure what it was – but an instinct she didn’t recognise told her she had found what she was looking for.

  She took a step to the right and the sensation faded. She stepped back again, and an odd sensation tugged at her, pulling her to the left and up the street. She followed, letting her feet guide her. Alice had never quite understood people who said they followed their heart, or their gut, but now it made perfect sense. She didn’t have the faintest idea of where she was going and yet she knew, just knew, that it was the right way.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Halfway to Heaven

  ALICE STOPPED OPPOSITE a bar. Or rather, the sense that she should keep walking past it dropped away, and the only logical thing to do was to stop. She looked at it from across the street and hoped that was only a temporary glitch. She really, really didn’t want to go in there.

  The window stretched across the front of the building, and while there were obviously lamps on inside, little light spilled out into the street. Shadows crosse
d the window from time to time, and voices drifted out into the air.

  No, she was definitely supposed to go inside.

  Just as she was questioning this newfound gut instinct of hers, two things happened.

  Firstly, she looked up. There was a sign above the door of the bar – an old-fashioned pub swing-board. On it was painted the name, the Halfway to Heaven. The words were painted in red across a pair of outstretched angel wings, and hadn’t Vin said that Mallory was at ‘the Halfway’? That was too much of a coincidence for her to ignore. The second thing was the appearance of a familiar shape in the doorway: Vin. She was about to call out to him when she noticed the figure next to him in the shadows – shorter and slimmer, with long hair. A woman. Alice bit her tongue. They were deep in conversation, and she found herself wondering whether Vin had a girlfriend. Whether Mallory did, for that matter; whether either of them – any of them – had friends, lovers... lives. She had no idea. It hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder, and it was as she thought this that Vin turned and looked at her.

  “What the...? Alice?”

  “Hey.” She raised her hand and waved, feebly.

  “What are you doing here? How did you even find us?” He hurried across the road to her, his eyes wide.

  “I don’t know, I just sort of...”

  “You can’t just stand out here. Not, you know, with the Fallen looking for you.” He dropped his voice to a whisper and bundled her towards the entrance. “You better get inside, but I tell you now, Mallory is not going to be happy. At least, he won’t be, later.”

  “Later?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The doorman gave her a once-over as Vin hustled her past, but Vin turned and hissed something incomprehensible at him. There was no sign of the woman she had seen earlier. Alice couldn’t be sure what the interior of the Halfway to Heaven normally looked like, but when she stepped through the door, the first thing that struck her was that it had been totally, utterly and completely trashed. Tables were lying on their sides, chairs strewn about the room – several of them broken into pieces – and shattered glass littered the floor. There were people about the edges of the room, but Alice’s eyes were drawn to the two in the midst of the mess. One was a short, stocky man in a dark coat. A nasty cut ran down the side of his face, dripping blood, and he had the beginnings of a black eye. The other was Mallory. They edged around each other, circling carefully.

  “What happened?” Alice hissed at Vin, who shook his head.

  “Mallory did.”

  “Where’s Gwyn?”

  “In the back, shouting at the manager, I imagine.”

  “Shouting? Why isn’t he out here?”

  “It’s a long story. Quiet.”

  He visibly tensed as the stocky man lunged at Mallory, who dodged sideways and ducked, turning to face the other man and punching him straight in the nose. There was a horrible cracking sound and more blood hit the floor. Mallory shifted his weight and aimed his boot at the back of the man’s knee, dropping him to the ground before circling him again, and Alice’s stomach lurched as she saw him reaching for his gun. As his opponent tried to clear his head and haul himself upright, he looked up, and straight into the barrel of Mallory’s Colt. Mallory’s wings opened, fluttering in agitation, as Alice suddenly understood everything he had been trying to tell her. If this was what an angel was capable of, she wondered, what did that mean for her?

  Mallory glowered at the man he had beaten. “You ever try that again and I’ll take your head off, you understand?”

  There was no answer, only a quiet nod. Mallory chewed his lip, and Alice saw his finger tense on the trigger. But he switched his grip, and smacked the side of the gun into the man’s face, knocking him out cold. He stood over the huddled figure and sniffed, then turned abruptly and walked towards a flight of stairs at the back of the room.

  Alice turned to Vin, her eyes wide. He shrugged, and pointed to the stairs. “After you.”

  Mallory had already disappeared through a door at the top by the time Alice and Vin had mounted the stairs.

  “What was that about?” she asked.

  Vin pulled a face and nodded back at the man on the floor. “That’s Drial. Ignore him, he’s always causing trouble.”

  “Is he...?”

  “An Earthbound? Yeah, he is. He’s kind of a gambler, starts fights, that sort of thing. He and Mallory have this running... issue.” He put a strange emphasis on the last word, and wrinkled his nose.

  Alice shook her head. “I was going to ask if he’s alright. He’s not moving much.”

  “Ah, gotcha. He’ll be fine. Before he got sent down here, he was one of the angelic guard. They’re the grunts: heavy lifting, minor intimidation, a bit of standing around looking pretty... you know. I wouldn’t worry about him. It’s not the first time he’s got his nose broken.” He caught her eye. “Seriously, he’ll be fine. Mallory packs one cracker of a pistolwhip.”

  “About that...”

  “Never try to cheat Mallory at cards. Not cool.”

  “That’s all he was doing? And Mallory did... that?” Alice pointed to the splattered blood on the floor.

  Vin laughed. “That’s not all he was doing, but I’m not sticking my face into that mess. But the cheating thing, he was doing that for sure. Roped in Sari over there to help him.” He gestured to a woman standing near the door, and Alice recognised her as the woman Vin had been talking to outside.

  “You know her?”

  “Saritiel? Sure I know her. We’re the same choir: Barakiel. Thing is, her gift is more straightforward than mine. If I told you Barakiel’s very handy round the card table...”

  “He’s lucky?”

  “Something like that. You want luck, it pays to have him on your side. Saritiel’s plugged right into it, so you can imagine how Mallory reacted when he realised what was going on.”

  “How’d he know?”

  “How’d he know? I told him, that’s how. And then I took Sari outside for a quiet word. It’s against the rules, pulling a stunt like that.”

  “I wasn’t sure there were any rules.”

  “You want to get back where you came from, sure, there are rules. Some are more easily bent than others. But those weren’t the kind of rules I meant: I’m talking about the Halfway House rules. Even so, Mallory’s in for a whooping for that mess.”

  Through the door at the top of the stairs they reached a narrow landing, barely light enough to see the end. Alice could just make out several doors leading off either side of the corridor.

  “Wait,” she said, catching at Vin’s arm.

  He stopped and looked at her. “What?”

  “You said you and Saritiel are from the same choir?”

  “And?”

  “But I thought the choirs were all supposed to be connected. So if she’s lucky, how come you turn the Fallen to stone?”

  “You wait till you meet one of them in a dark alley. Then tell me it’s not lucky.” He pointed at one of the doors ahead in the gloom. “They’re in there.”

  THE DOOR OPENED into a dingy little office with a sticky floor. Directly ahead of them, Mallory was sitting on the desk, swinging his feet. He smiled at Vin as they entered. Then his face clouded when he saw Alice.

  “You’re not supposed to be here. How did you find us? No, never mind. I may be daft, but I’m not daft enough to expect you to answer.” He glanced over his shoulder, then back to them. “Meet Mickey,” he said, gesturing to someone behind the desk. “This little toerag’s about to lose his licence.”

  He picked up a sheaf of papers from the desk and dropped them on the floor. Alice peered down at them: there were pages of notes in that curving scrawl of Mallory’s, and a handful of grainy black-and-white photos, all of the same man. She picked one up and looked at it. He was handsome, there was no denying that. Cropped dark hair and dark-ringed eyes; a black coat with the sleeves pushed up carelessly, tight black jeans tucked into expensive-looking boots. The photos had
been taken outside the bar; she could just make out the swingboard in the corner of the picture.

  “Look closer,” Vin hissed in her ear, and tapped his wrist.

  She turned back to the photo, and saw it: around his left wrist there was an unmistakable white band, bright enough to show up even in the surveillance photos. She dropped the picture. He was one of the Fallen.

  She looked up to see Mallory watching her, his eyebrows raised. Then he winked, and swivelled around on the desk so he was facing the other man. “You know how we feel about the Fallen. So what I want to know is, why have you been letting one of them come and go as he damn well pleases?”

  “It’s not like that...” The man’s voice was thin and reedy. He sounded petrified.

  Mallory scooted closer to him. “It’s not? Really? Then how about you go ahead and tell me how it is, Mickey. Because I’m all ears.”

  “He came... He said he was looking for something...”

  “Aren’t we all, Mickey? Aren’t we all?” Mallory’s voice rang with sarcasm, but it was lost on the terrified landlord, who shook his head feebly.

  “Not something. Someone. He was looking for someone.”

  “Oh?”

  “Said it would be a half-born. Newly woken. Said there were ‘interested parties.’ That it would be worth my while, and that if I didn’t help them, they’d, well...”

  “That they’d what? Rip you open and hang you by your own intestines?”

  “That was about the gist of it, yes.” His voice faded to a whimper, and Mallory growled.

  “That’s the Fallen all over for you. About as imaginative as mud. Always with the ripping and the hanging.”

  He half-turned towards Alice and Vin, but was distracted by Mickey, who had lunged for the desk and was rummaging around in a drawer. Mallory kicked his hand away, but not soon enough, and a sharp, loud bang echoed round the room. Alice’s ears rang and she shook her head to clear them, reaching out for Vin’s shoulder to support herself. As soon as she touched him, however, he leapt away, throwing her off balance and tipping her onto the floor. She looked up... and suddenly saw why he had jerked away. The shoulder of his jacket was scorched, smoking; he was staring at her with wide eyes – almost as wide as those of the landlord.