by Lou Morgan
Vin rolled his wings back behind his shoulders. “Well, what? There’s not much to say. I went, I looked, I saw pretty much fuck-all of any use.”
“Think you can do it?”
“Who knows? It’s pretty big...”
“I never had you down for understatement.”
“Me all over. Understated. Cool. Collected.” He made a sliding motion with his hand, and managed to hit Saritiel in the shoulder, not realising she was walking up behind him. “Ouch.”
“Shit. Sorry. I... err, didn’t see you.”
“Clearly.” Saritiel narrowed her eyes at him, then turned to Mallory. “I came to see if there’s anything I can do.”
Mallory made a strangled squeaking sound in response, his whole body shaking with suppressed laughter as Vin blushed furiously.
Sari sighed. “I see I’ve caught you boys at a bad time. I’ll come back later.” She spun on her heel and stalked off, leaving Vin waving forlornly after her.
Mallory roared with laughter. “Understated. Cool. Collected. Absolutely.”
“Piss off, Mallory.” By this point even Vin was smiling. “You’re not helping.”
“Sorry. It’s just...” His face crumpled into a laugh again. “It’s really not your day, is it?”
“No. It’s not...” Vin suddenly turned and looked back over his shoulder at the Bone-Built Gate. “You know what? I reckon I can help you out with that. But I’m going to need something.”
“What’s that?”
“A serious amount of luck. Give me an hour, and I’ll meet you back here.”
Mallory watched him go, then turned his attention back to the Gate, running a hand over the bones that had been lashed together to build it. It didn’t make him feel any better than it did Vin, but there was something admirable about the sheer bloody-minded effort that had gone into it. Say what you want about the Fallen, but they never did things by halves. Something moved at the corner of his vision, drawing his eyes to the ice. Charon was back, staring out at him in open hostility, and he blew her a kiss before raising his fingers to draw a pattern in the air, which he then flicked in her direction. She opened her mouth in a frozen hiss and retreated into the cascade of ice, but not before he saw the figure behind her who ducked aside as she sank deeper, obviously just as keen to keep out of her way as he was to avoid being seen by the angels. Looking out was a man with cropped hair and dark-ringed eyes, and Mallory’s blood pounded in his ears.
“Rimmon.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
If You Can’t See the Woods for the Trees,
What You Really Need is a Chainsaw
“I THINK WE should’ve turned left by that fruit tree.”
“You think?”
“Hey. Don’t get snitty with me, I’m just following you!”
“Now why in the world would you do that?”
“Err... because you’re supposed to know where you’re going, maybe?” Alice poked Abbadona’s shoulder, hard enough to make him flinch.
He gave her a dirty look. “Only on the top levels, which is where I agreed to be your guide, princess. Not down here. No way. This is the Twelve’s patch. This is where the crazy people come.”
Alice was reluctant to admit it, but there was definitely something in what he was saying. Since they had crossed the river, things had been both easier and harder. Easier in that all those nagging doubts had evaporated and she felt clear, focused. Sober. She still didn’t know exactly what she was looking for in hell – something of Xaphan’s, yes, but what? – but Xaphan was one of the Twelve, and that meant she was on the right track. This side of the river frightened Abbadona too, and he was now putting more of his energy into getting out alive than he was into being unpleasant. This could only be a good thing. In fact, it had been a while since she had imagined setting him on fire. Perhaps she was just getting used to him again.
The landscape was changing around them as they walked, or not so much walked as stumbled blindly, occasionally bickering about the direction they should be going. Alice was exhausted – bone-tired and soul-cold – but still she kept going. Her companion didn’t look like he was doing much better. So from that point of view, it was getting harder. Much harder.
The bare rock of the upper levels of hell had given way to a forest, albeit the most unsettling one Alice had ever seen. There were still no real shadows; just the same grey-blue light, making the trees appear somehow false, like the painted backdrop of a stage. She had imagined that if she touched one, it would be smooth and flat. Despite this conviction, she couldn’t quite bring herself to actually reach out and lay her hand on one of the trunks. They were awful-looking things with knotted branches twisted quite out of shape, the roots ripping back out of the ground and threatening to catch hold of her feet as she passed. The leaves, too – such as they had – were black and frost-burned, the edges curled in on themselves, and the whole thing was nicely set off by the vicious thorns that jutted out of the wood at all angles. It was a place she was keen to leave as soon as possible, and she deeply regretted not having taken the other path (or what there was of one) earlier. But that had been before the forest.
“Alright,” she groaned, sitting down heavily, “so you have any idea where we are? At all?”
“Sure. I told you: where the crazy people come.” He sat down beside her and stretched his legs out, shoving a tree root to one side with his boot. It bounced back and he scuffed at it, swearing.
“That’s not helpful.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true, though, does it? See these trees?” He leaned back and grabbed hold of a small branch, oblivious to the thorns that pricked his skin. With a sudden burst of effort, he tugged on it and it snapped clean off the tree, and a high-pitched scream rang out, making Alice sit bolt upright, her eyes wide. As the scream faded, a soft moaning rose up around them as though in answer. It, too, died down and left them in silence. Abbadona held up the branch. “The trees don’t like it when you do that.”
“What are they?”
“Used to be people.” He dropped the wood and rubbed his palms together, wiping the blood from his hands. Alice stared at the branch he had discarded and reached for it, but he slapped her hand away. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. They might not like having the odd branch pulled off, but just imagine how they’d feel about a forest fire.”
Alice promptly put her hands in her pockets. He had a point. “So if they used to be people, what did they do to end up here?”
“No idea.” He twisted a piece of root that had caught on his jacket, and there was another shriek from the tree. “Like I say, I don’t come here, so don’t expect me to know all the rules, but I’m telling you, it can’t have been good.” The tree shrieked again, and he swore at it. “Well, let go of my fucking coat then, would you?” he said, pulling at the root, which clung on all the more stubbornly.
Alice edged away. “Don’t you think you should stop doing that? If it... hurts it?”
“Hello? Fallen. Not supposed to be nice.”
“Clearly.”
SHE WATCHED AS man took on tree, and lost. Repeatedly. The swearing got louder. The shrieking got louder still, and the moaning with it. Eventually, Alice couldn’t take it any more and leapt forward, forcibly hauling Abbadona to his feet and away.
And let go immediately.
She hadn’t just felt it; she had seen it.
Abbadona, beaten and bloody, and tied to a wheel. It spun, slowly. So slowly. And it burned with a black fire that chewed at his flesh without ever consuming him. It just kept on burning.
Her ears rang and her breath caught in her throat. There were stars floating across her vision, pinwheeling past her.
She was seeing what had happened to him when he’d come back to hell.
“This is because of me. I did this.”
“No.” His voice was surprisingly gentle. “Purson did that. The wheel’s one of Xaphan’s greatest hits.”
“It hurt...”
“Oh, yeah. It hurt. A lot. And for a long time. Every once in a while, Lucifer would pop into my head, just to make sure I wasn’t lying about just how much pain I was in. He’s nice like that.” He helped her to her feet, steadying her as she staggered slightly. “I should thank you, really. I guess that was the point I decided I’d had enough.” He held up his burned wrist, rubbing at it thoughtfully. “I’ve never minded it down here as much as some of the others. We have a purpose, you know? The Plains... the Dark House... it makes sense after a while. Even you get that,” he said. “But this? What Lucifer’s done, there’s always someone else in your head, and after a while, you can’t even be sure that what you’re thinking is actually you, and that really is hell, Alice.”
“And that’s why you’ve come this far? Because you feel like you owe me?”
“Piss off. No. I’ve come this far with you because I’m done down here, and you’re really my best option. My only option. So I’m helping you, and if we get caught, then god help us both.”
Alice was about to answer, but heard a rustling, shuffling sound behind her and turned. At first, she saw nothing, just the cold, empty forest, but then a pair of black-tipped ears appeared from behind a fallen tree, then two round yellow eyes and a long, pointed muzzle.
“Look at that,” she said, watching as it crept out further, eyeing the two of them. Abbadona was busy examining a hole in his jacket – the result of his epic battle with the tree – and didn’t look up. “What?”
“It’s a fox. I think he’s watching us.”
“A what?” he dropped the hem of his jacket and peered over her shoulder.
“A fox. Look! There.”
“Alice.” Abbadona’s voice was quiet, calm, but urgent. “There aren’t any foxes in hell.”
“But...”
“Run!” he grabbed her hand, ignoring the fire that flashed up between them, and he dragged her with him – and they were running through the forest, ducking the low-hanging branches, jumping the roots that stuck out of the ground like iron spikes. The thorns tore at Alice’s hair, at her skin and her coat as they raced past; her heart pounded and her muscles burned. The air stung her face and her eyes streamed, but it was not the cold that chilled her even as she ran: it was the single question which hung in her mind. Because if that had not been a fox....
Behind them, the fox hopped down from the fallen limb of the tree and blinked, watching as they disappeared into the forest. It scratched behind one ear and yawned lazily... but as it yawned, its mouth opened wider and wider, stretching further and further open, until its whole head seemed to disappear behind its jaws – and still it yawned, becoming a thing of teeth and throat and little else. And suddenly, there was a man standing in its place. A man with too many teeth and a badly-scarred face, smoothing down his hair and smiling as he spread his burned wings.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Oriflamme
“YOU BRING YOUR whole choir with you, or what?” Mallory eyed the Earthbounds who were following Vin and lining themselves up in a semi-circle around the Gate.
Vin shrugged. “Everyone I could find.”
“Will it be enough?”
“One way to find out.” He shook his wings free with a flourish, opening them wide. “Hold these,” he said, passing Mallory his sunglasses. “And look after them, would you? Those are my babies. You break them, I break you.” On that note, he turned and stalked away.
Mallory looked down at the glasses and shook his head. “Muppet.”
“I heard that!” said Vin’s retreating back.
THERE WERE FEWER Earthbounds from Barakiel’s choir than he had hoped. This meant one of two things: either his peers had decided to sit this one out, or Barakiel’s boys and girls tended to be much better-behaved than the other Archangels’ and there were simply fewer of them in exile. Thinking back to the time before he was banished, Vin strongly suspected the latter. Still, fifty was a good enough number, particularly when one of them looked like Saritiel. She had taken a position directly in front of the Gate, right behind where he would need to stand – and sure, maybe he could argue it was for purely practical reasons, her gift being one of the strongest, the luckiest, in the whole choir. But equally, he could convince himself quite happily that, really, it was because she wanted to be close to him. Needed to be. Yes. That sounded a whole lot better.
He stopped in front of the Gate, staring at it like he hoped that would be enough to bring it down. It wouldn’t, but it was always worth a go. The truth was that he had no idea whether this would work. Nor what it could do to him if it didn’t.
“Alright, then. Let’s do this.”
He rolled his shoulders and took a deep breath. As one, the other angels opened their wings; heads tipped back, eyes closed. Vin blew out the breath he had been holding and turned his hands over, palms up, tipping them towards the Gate. Grey fog tumbled from his hands, spilling through his fingers and sliding over the rock towards the bones. It crept up the vertical surface of the Gate, clinging like dust to everything it touched: thin tendrils of mist weaving around the curves of skulls and hips wedged side-by-side. Inch by inch, the bleached white of old bone darkened to grey, mottled with age and moss.
Sweat beaded on Vin’s forehead as the stone rose up the Gate, far beyond his head and out of sight – rushing now towards the vanished roof – and for the first time, his hands shook. Really shook, uncontrollably. His body ached. His head throbbed and the cold, which he had been doing his best to ignore, drilled into his heart. There was something else, too: a dull ache in his bones; a heavy slowness that was binding to him somewhere deep inside, but he pushed it away. He knew what it was, and that was enough. The Gate must fall.
He could feel the stone now, feel the weight of it pulling on his hands and drawing him towards it. He pulled back to hold his ground. It was so nearly done, so close. Just. A. Little. More.
Somewhere high above, stone met bone met rock and, with a groan, it was over. Vin was vaguely aware of the voices behind him: the angels of his choir opening their eyes to see what it was that he had done.
The Bone-Built Gate was no longer bone. No less solid, it could have been cut from a mountain and dropped into hell. It had worked. A cheer went up from the Earthbounds huddled behind the ring of Barakiel’s choir just as Vin’s strength gave out. His legs folded in on themselves and, suddenly, there were hands on his shoulders.
“Vhnori?”
MALLORY WATCHED AS the Gate changed, slowly at first, but then with alarming speed. He saw Vin sag as his hands dropped, saw Saritiel rush to his side. The cheer echoed around the entrance to hell: a thousand angels spoiling for a fight, and they were just the beginning. Mallory knew what would happen as soon as the Gate was down. The Fallen had broken the rules, and the full wrath of the angels was about to land on them. He almost felt sorry for them. Almost, because Alice was still in there.
Without realising it, he had been shouldering his way through the crowd towards the Gate, checking his gun and reloading it as he went. He stopped automatically beside Vin as Saritiel helped him to his feet. “Not bad.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Want these back?” Mallory held out the sunglasses, and Vin took them, a little shakily.
“What happens now?” he asked as he dropped them into his pocket, first giving them a quick once-over. He caught Mallory staring at him and shrugged defensively. “They weren’t cheap, alright?”
“Hmmph. Now,” said Mallory, turning his gun over in his hands, “we see what’s through door number one.”
He let out a long, loud whistle and the angels who had crowded around the Gate, touching it as though they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing, suddenly parted like a sea, clearing a path between Mallory and the Gate. They stood stock-still, just watching. Waiting.
Mallory was running. His wings snapped open, and he was in the air, racing towards the Gate. Rolling in mid-air, he brought up the gun and pointed it at the centre of the Gate, unloading ev
ery round he had and firing until the chamber was empty. At first, nothing happened, and his heart sank. Then he heard it: a quiet cracking sound, almost too low to notice.
“Clear the Gate!” he shouted, and suddenly the air was full of angels massing behind him, their wings beating in time. Spinning towards the Gate, Mallory offered up the closest thing he had to a prayer that he was right, that the stone would give, just as his boot crashed through it.
The cracks spiderwebbed out through the Gate; the broken edges of the stone grinding against one another as they shifted. Fragments shook loose and rained down, shattering into dust as the remaining angels took to the air – even Vin, exhausted but in no hurry to be crushed by falling rock. The Gate was crumbling, and the angels drew back as the pieces grew larger and fell faster, from higher and higher.
A huge dust-cloud rose from beneath the pieces as they fell, mushrooming up and around them and swirling through the currents made by the beating wings of the angels. The air grew thick with it: a dusty, musty, choking fog that shut out everything beyond it and cloaked them in silence. The only sound was of feathers.
Transformed, the Gate had lost the power of the bones which had held it in place for so long. Without that, the sheer weight of the stone had collapsed in on itself, as Mallory had known it would, leaving a pile of rubble and an empty space between the ice cliffs. All it had taken was a push in the right direction.
Hell was open to the angels.
And the Fallen were waiting.
THEY WERE THERE, on the other side, in a single line. There were hundreds of them, their eyes all fixed on the angels. Mallory landed on a tumbled heap of stone and dust, scanning the line. There was no sign of Rimmon this time, but a shimmering blue figure caught his eye, far to the left of the line. Charon. Beside her was a tall, broad-shouldered man in blackened armour; his shoulders and helmet almost completely covered by a pale, stiff cloak. He carried a standard and banner with him, its high pole topped with a human hand, shriveled and twisted with age. Mallory sighed. The standard and the cloak of human skin could only mean one thing: that Azazel had been promoted. If there was one of the Fallen he hadn’t wanted to see acting as standard-bearer, it was him. What Azazel lacked in intelligence, he more than made up for with sheer brute force and, worse, obedience. If Lucifer told him to jump, he not only asked how high, but who he should land on when he came back down. More worryingly, even at this distance Mallory could see the bright red glow of his eyes. Azazel wasn’t alone in his head.
