by Lou Morgan
“He had a run-in with one of the Twelve.”
“Is he alright?”
“He is now. But he wasn’t exactly in the best shape. Not surprising, given that he was tortured half to death and then dropped out of a ninth-storey window.”
“Jesus.” Alice’s hand flew to her mouth.
“He’s fine, Alice. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. We’re tougher than we look, remember – but he was in a lot of pain. Which brings us to you.”
“Did I?”
“And then some. I think the best word would be ‘exploded.’ You melted the road. I was actually pretty impressed.” He smiled, but his face clouded again. “It made me realise something though: we need to think about getting you some control over it. Can’t have you spending the rest of your life burning up every time someone breaks a leg.... What?” He tailed off, seeing the expression on her face. She was frowning at him, her ams folded across her body.
“I thought you’d be more worried about making sure I can do whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Alice, what do you think I am?” He scooted forward and crouched in front of the sofa. “I told you: you’re necessary. Whether you like it or not, you’re in the middle of this and there’s no getting away from it. But there’s a bigger picture – there’s always a bigger picture – and that’s how you live with this gift. You have to make your peace with who you are, and accept what it means. Otherwise, whatever happens, you’ll never be able to get on with the rest of your life.”
“Assuming I have a life, right? I thought there was some kind of cosmic bullseye on my back?”
“You’re just a bag of sunshine, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure I understand what I’m supposed to do.”
“You have to be willing to take control of it, to own it – all of it.” He placed a curious emphasis on the last three words, and Alice stared blankly at him. He met her eyes, then suddenly looked away. “And I know just the place to start.” His gun was lying on the table in front of her, and he picked it up, spinning it around his palm.
It was only then that Alice noticed what was missing: people. There was no sign of Gwyn, of Jester and Florence or Vin. It was just the two of them.
“Where are they all? What happened to the twins? Were they in there?”
“You don’t need to think about it, Alice. There’s other things that need your attention.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed, pulling the slider of the Colt back and peering at it. “Vin’s gone looking for them. He thinks they were taken – provided they lived.”
“And Gwyn?”
“Oh, he’s around. A little tied up at the moment, but he’ll be back and breathing down my neck again before you know it. Enjoy the break.” His gun went back under his jacket and the hip flask came out. Alice cleared her throat. “Is that wise?”
“Is what wise?” he asked, the flask pausing on its way to his lips. She nodded at it, and he glanced down, then laughed flatly, downing the contents. “Probably not,” he said as he screwed the lid back on and dropped it into his pocket. “This is where it gets hard.”
“And you said I’m being cheerful? Great. What now?”
“Now you start learning how to stay alive.”
“YOU WON’T LIKE this,” he warned her as they rounded the corner.
They were at the far end of the cemetery, fields, trees and graves the only things around them. Mallory seemed edgy, passing his gun from hand to hand as he walked. Alice followed, numbly. Something in her had changed. She had lied to him, of course. She remembered the fire; how it had burned the world around her down to a small, bright sphere of pain. The memory of it itched inside her flesh. Mallory was talking, but his voice floated past unnoticed. She had felt Vin’s pain – not at a distance, not filtered and faded, but as sharp and clear as if it were her own. It turned her stomach, even now. And the flames... so fast and hard and hungry. She shrugged the thought away, then stopped dead in her tracks.
Ahead of them was a large tree. It was obviously old. One of the first trees to be planted in the cemetery, maybe, or maybe it was there first, the graves slotted in around it. You didn’t tend to argue with trees that size. If you did, you couldn’t expect it to end well. And tied to it, his arms stretched back around the mass of the trunk, was a man. He looked familiar, and Alice’s mind jumped back to the Halfway to Heaven, the grainy photographs there, and then she caught sight of a flash of white at his wrist and she knew. Not a man: a Fallen.
“His name’s Rimmon,” Mallory said, dropping to one knee beneath the tree. He tugged on a rope. Not only had he bound Rimmon to the tree itself, he had tied his ankles to sturdy iron stakes planted hard into the ground. Satisfied, he stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands and knees, ruffling Rimmon’s hair before walking back to Alice. “He’s not one of the Twelve, before you ask. He’s a lackey, nothing more exciting than that. Quite the charmer, when he wants to be.”
“Fuck you, Mallory,” Rimmon mumbled, just loud enough to be certain he was heard.
Mallory stopped, his head tilting to one side. Without a word, he turned and leapt at Rimmon, his wings opening and lifting him clear of the ground with one easy beat. His boot slammed into the side of Rimmon’s jaw, and the Fallen’s head snapped to the side with the force of the blow. He spat blood at Mallory, who landed several feet away, adjusting his cuffs and moving back towards Alice. “You feel that?”
“Feel what?” she asked.
“Come on, Alice.”
“No, honestly. Feel what?”
She was lying. Of course she was lying. As soon as Mallory’s feet had left the ground, she felt a spike of fear that wasn’t hers: cold, sharp and hard. And as Mallory’s boot met Rimmon’s face, there had been a dull ache and the familiar crawling under the skin of her palms. She buried it, and she lied.
Mallory shook his head and ran his hand back through his hair. “Alright. You win.”
Suddenly the gun was in his hand... and so very casually, he pointed it at Rimmon, who froze. His eyes widened as he stared at Mallory over the barrel, and Alice felt the wash of his fear again. It didn’t even fade when Mallory lowered the gun – and when the bullet hit Rimmon’s foot, it only grew more insistent, almost drowning out the pain she felt in her own. Almost, but not quite. Mallory looked across at her. “How about that?”
“No.”
“Really?” He turned back to Rimmon. “Lucky I brought lots of bullets, hey?” He fired again – this time into the Fallen’s other foot. Alice flinched.
Another bullet hit Rimmon’s shoulder; yet another, his thigh. And Mallory was about to take aim again when Alice couldn’t hold it back any longer. With a sigh, she felt something inside her give, and the fire ran across her skin like quicksilver. The pain was gone, and with it, the icicle ache of Rimmon’s fear. In its place was warmth and light and flame. And it was hungry. Mallory lowered the gun and nodded approvingly.
“There you go. That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”
“You have to stop. This isn’t right.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, Alice.”
Mallory tucked the gun away and strode over to Rimmon, now sagging against the ropes that bound him. He was bleeding heavily, sticky redness soaking through his black coat and making it shine like tar. Mallory leaned close to him, their faces almost touching. “You forgot: war is what I do. You try bringing the battle to me, and you better be sure you’re going to win. You tell that to Lucifer next time you see him.”
“Tell him yourself.” Rimmon’s head lolled, and his voice was thick with the blood running down his chin. “You remember, when they’re cutting you to pieces. You remember that I tried to help you.” He rolled his head to the side and looked right at Mallory, who smiled and punched him in the face.
He was still awake. Alice could feel him somewhere inside her mind, scrabbling for purchase on his fear. She was dimly aware of the pain the guns
hots caused him, but it was no longer hers. She felt calm, suddenly at ease with the flames that boiled the air around her, with the sparks that kicked from her hair. She closed her eyes, and she was lost in the blaze.
When she opened them again, Mallory was watching her. “Let it go, Alice.”
“Let what go?”
“You’re holding on to it. Let it go.”
“I don’t...”
“Let it go.”
He stepped back, his wings spread behind him, and Alice wondered what he had looked like before he was Earthbound. Whether Mallory, with his battered jeans and tattered wings, had worn armour that shone like the sun... and as she thought it, she felt the heart of the fire; knew what it wanted. It flared around her, brighter than she thought she could bear. And she let it go.
The flames raced to her fingertips and spilled out, pouring off her skin and into the air until she stood behind a wall of fire. It hung in front of her, shifting, waiting – then it rushed towards the tree. Rimmon saw it coming and he screamed, suddenly finding the strength to pull against the ropes that held him. The fire wrapped around him like another skin, winding itself about him, into his mouth and eyes and nose. He was lost inside it, and for a moment, Alice thought she saw something else beneath the flames, a flash of red that came and went. He burned and he burned and he burned, until, with a tearing, sucking sound, the flames disappeared and took him with them, leaving only a few charred ropes wrapped around the tree.
There was silence. A single spark danced across Alice’s face and she brushed it away. “That was wrong.”
“Oh, really?”
“You tied him up, Mallory. And you tortured him. We tortured him. How’s that right?”
“Because it’s what needed to be done.”
“I don’t see why.”
“You don’t, do you?” Mallory was angry, she could see it in the way he moved, hear it in his voice: a rage that bubbled through her blood, too. “You never will, either. That’s why you have me. So that you can keep your precious human morals. So that you can keep your humanity.”
“Listen to yourself. Saying it like that’s a bad thing.”
“Sometimes, it is. You lack clarity. It can’t be helped.”
“I’d rather that than be cruel, because that’s what that was.” She jabbed a finger at the still-smoking ropes. “That was no better than what they did to Vin, and you know it. Are you as much of a monster as they are?”
“Of course I am, Alice. I have to be. I’m an angel.” Mallory’s voice broke her heart. She watched as he beat his wings – once, twice – and was gone, leaving her in the cemetery.
She stared at the sky and screamed until her throat was raw.
HE WASN’T GONE long. She knew he wouldn’t be. He slouched his way out of a small copse a few minutes later. “Have you finished venting?”
“Yes.” She felt a little embarrassed. The screaming might have been a little over-the-top, maybe, but it had been necessary. Something had been necessary, otherwise her head would have exploded. Probably. He patted her shoulder. “You did just fine. I’m proud of you.”
“Doesn’t mean it was right.”
“Alice, you listen to me. What do you think would have happened if you had been in the flat when Purson got there? I’ll tell you. It would have been you in that chair, and you I was peeling off the concrete, and you wouldn’t have made it. That would have been it: game over. For you, for me, for all of us.”
“Purson?”
“Nice chap. Hell’s tracker – hell’s torturer, for that matter. He wouldn’t have thought twice before taking you to pieces, and you know what? He’d have enjoyed every second of it. All of them would. So don’t even think about showing them any mercy. Do not pity them. They won’t return the favour.”
“That’s not the speech you gave me before. I liked that one. The brothers one.”
“They were. Don’t you see? That’s why there’s no space for doubt. A second is all they need. The slightest hesitation and you’re lost. They made their choices, and now they must live with them. All of them.”
“What did this one – Rimmon – mean? When he said he was trying to help you?”
“None of your business,” Mallory said sharply.
Alice put her hands on her hips. “You don’t get to say that to me. Not again. It is my business. You ask me to trust you? I do. You tell me what to do, and by and large, I’ve done it. I’ve asked you for answers before, and if you want me to carry on being a good little girl, you need to trust me.”
“Do I?” he laughed. “And what should I be trusting you with?”
“I don’t know, do I? That’s just it.” She planted her feet and stood firm. “You could tell me what the drinking’s about, for a start.”
“Do I really need to explain to you why people drink, Alice? You, of all people?” His voice was light, but there was no escaping his meaning.
A chill curled around Alice’s spine. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I know, Alice. I know everything about you. Including that.”
“It was a long time ago...”
“No, it wasn’t. It was a couple of years. To me, that’s a heartbeat.”
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“No, you don’t, do you? And that’s why they had to force you to go back to therapy, isn’t it? Because – and I think I’ve got this right – ‘talking won’t help.’ Have I got the sum of it there?”
“How do you know all this?”
“I told you, Alice. I know you. You think we’d leave you unprotected all these years? There’s always been someone watching over you. Your junior school teacher, Esther Charles? A half-born. Eddie North, your college lecturer? An Earthbound. Your therapist...”
“You’re telling me that Dr Grove is an angel? Seriously?”
“No, I was going to tell you he owed me money. But that’s not the point. The point is that you have never been alone – however much you might have felt it – not really. Not since your mother left.”
“Left?” The chill crept up her back and through her chest. Mallory was always careful with his words, and he was being particularly careful now. Alice’s knees shook. “Mallory. You said angels were hard to kill. And my mother was an angel... and she’s dead.”
“Alice,” Mallory’s dark eyes met hers, and they were shining in a way she had never seen before.
A tear slid down Mallory’s face.
“About that. Your mother... she isn’t dead.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Real Estate
THE HOUSE HAD been empty for several months – yet another victim of the slump. It shouldn’t have been, of course. It had light, airy rooms and a garden that was larger than most in the street, but the tenants just didn’t seem to stick. There were a hundred reasons why tenants broke their contracts or simply did a bunk – and by now he’d heard them all – but none of the usual suspects seemed to fit the bill here.
The door creaked as he opened it, and he swung it back and forth, checking for warping or signs of damp. Nothing. Just as well: shifting an empty house from the books is one thing; shifting a damp empty house is quite another. They can always smell it, tenants, as soon as they step foot through the door. Of course, then they do nothing about it and complain when the plaster drops off. He sighed, and he sniffed. No, no damp. Dust, mostly.
He plodded from room to room, flicking on light switches and staring at the ceilings, touching his hand to radiators and peering into cupboards. All was well. A quick clamber into the attic told him that, yes, the wasp nest was still there, but it was abandoned. He made a note to call the exterminator to come and deal with it in the week. In the kitchen, the boiler chugged obligingly when he tweaked the thermostat a couple of degrees higher; with the weather turning cold, it could do with the heating running a little hotter. Didn’t take long for a cold house to become a damp house, and then you’re right back with the sniffy-tenant problem.
Only the basement remained.
The last people to live here for any length of time had complained, once, about the basement. They said it was cold: colder than it should be. He had, of course, explained to them that the basement was unheated, uninsulated and – obviously – several feet underground. It was natural for it to be chilly. No, they said, you don’t understand. It’s cold. There was some nonsense about withholding their rent until the issue was resolved, so he had booked a maintenance visit for the next week and told them to keep the door shut. When the agency’s maintenance man turned up, they had gone. No word of warning, no phone call... nothing. Just gone, like they’d never been there at all.
The girls in the office liked to joke that the house was haunted after that – which was all well and good between the strip-lights and carpet tiles, sitting at the desk with a cup of coffee and a pile of paperwork, but not so much fun when you’re alone in the gathering dark, with the rain beating on the windows of a house that wants to be left alone.
He straightened his tie and cleared his throat, momentarily angry at himself, and reached for the handle of the door to the basement stairs... then snapped his hand away as his fingers brushed the knob.
It was cold. Searingly cold; cold enough to have left a red welt on the tips of his fingers where they touched the metal. He held his hand up, peering at his skin – and saw his breath in front of him. He backed away – or tried to. Instead, he found himself slipping sideways, his feet fighting for grip on a floor that had suddenly become like glass. The ice was spreading out and across the floor, away from the door... which swung on its hinges and stood, open, inviting.
It wasn’t that he wanted to step through it. Far from it, a good portion of his mind was telling him to get out now, as fast as he could, and not to come back – to throw the keys in the nearest hedge and to lose the memory of this house. But it was the other part of him that was winning.
He took a heavy half-step forward, skated the rest, grabbed at the doorframe for support. His hands stuck to the ice that crawled up the wood and he had to pull himself free. Here, at least, his shoes gripped the bare concrete of the floor. A bulb hung from the ceiling. It was already lit, the glass misted with cold. The stairs dropped away ahead of him, bounded by the wall on one side and a black iron banister on the other. Icicles hung from the rail, trails of frost etched across its surface. His suit felt very thin.
