by Lou Morgan
“You’re sure they’re still here?”
“Where else are they going to go?”
“Anywhere. They could go anywhere.”
THE STAIRS WERE pressed metal, the treads rusted through in places, stretching up to the first floor in a straight line. The upper floor of the warehouse was entirely in darkness, and Alice raised her hands. Sparks drifted up from her palms, dancing and spinning away, tiny stars pricking the dark. Behind her, she could hear the rustling of feathers as the angels fell into line. Without a word, she put her foot on the lowest tread and fire raced up the handrails, blazing ahead of her as the angels followed.
The Fallen would know they were coming now: that was the point. It was too late for them to run, and even if they tried – which, in Alice’s painful experience, they wouldn’t – there were more Earthbounds outside, surrounding the building. Some of them had been in hell. Some of them had not. All of them were just as eager to fight... and Alice wanted the Fallen to know they were ready.
The upper floor was little more than a steel platform, wedged into the shell of the warehouse and supported by girders, but one corner was partitioned off behind a solid-looking slab of metal, resting on tracks set into the floor. A door. Fire streamed out and across it, making it tremble, until it buckled, one corner twisting away from the wall.
Alice watched as the huge door shook harder and harder... then ducked as it tore completely free with a horrible groan, flying over their heads and crashing onto the concrete floor below in a thick cloud of dust. As the dust cleared, Alice glanced up and ahead from her position on the stairs... and she saw them.
There were maybe a dozen of them, standing in a line just behind the door’s runners, grinning at her with the blackened ruins of their wings extended. She recognised one or two of them, but it was the man in the middle who caught her eye. A tattoo covered the entire lower half of his face: twisting blue lines which seemed to writhe across his skin... and as she watched, one of the tattoos peeled away from his face, reaching towards her.
Too late to turn back now.
The tattooed Fallen threw back his head and let out a howl that sounded more animal than man, and the stand-off was broken. Alice took the last two stairs in a single step, racing towards the Fallen with the angels at her back. Some of the Fallen stepped forward to meet them; some dropped into a crouch with their hands out in front of them. Some even turned and dropped back into the room. Only their leader stood firm, his eyes on Alice, the ink lines on his face winding around his jaw and, one by one, pulling out and away from him.
Their eyes locked as she ran towards him, surprised – as always – by how calm she felt. She could feel the fear of the others around her, some of them angels, some of them Fallen, but none of it was hers. She was not afraid: the fire that burned around her wrists and in her hair and in her footsteps saw to that – stripping away the cold and the dark and everything else she felt inside, emptying her out. She did not feel afraid; she felt alive.
The first of the Fallen to reach her threw out his arms as though to catch her between them. Alice ducked smoothly and twisted away, leaving his hands to close on empty air. Pivoting on her heel, she kicked up and out with her other foot, slamming it into the middle of his chest. He flew back in a cloud of flame. To her left, one of the Earthbounds from Gabriel’s choir had another of the Fallen pinned down, hand clamped over his mouth and a halo of lightning crackling around the Fallen’s head as his eyes rolled back in their sockets.
The only light came from the sparks still hanging overhead, and it wasn’t enough. It was too dark, and there were too many of the Fallen. A scream cut through the air – a man’s voice, whether angel or Fallen, Alice couldn’t tell... and she realised she had lost her opponent. He had been right there, right in front of her, but then she had been distracted by the other Fallen, and she could have kicked herself for being taken in so easily. Of course she’d been distracted: that’s what he’d wanted. And she wasn’t going to let him get away. Shutting out the chaos around her, Alice took a deep breath and closed her eyes... and the air above her erupted into boiling orange light. Flames scudded through the air and lapped at the walls.
Shadows crawled along the floor, twisted by the movement of the flames overhead; fingers reaching out to claw at Alice as she moved through the fight. The Earthbounds were proving as vicious as the Fallen, and several of the enemy were already down. Judging by the angles of their limbs, or the thick puddles around them, they wouldn’t be getting up again.
At the far side of the floor, she saw an Earthbound in the grip of one of the Fallen, and with a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach she realised it had to be another of the Twelve. He was half a head taller than anyone else there, and his fists were wrapped with what looked like barbed wire. Every blow he landed raked bloody holes in the helpless angel’s skin, and Alice could do little more than watch in horror as he sank his teeth into the angel’s neck. He tore out a mouthful of flesh, spitting it onto the floor with a laugh – and then his eyes met hers. His lips peeled back into a sharp smile, blood still dripping from his teeth. He dropped the body of the Earthbound and stepped over him, beckoning her... and was immediately thrown sideways by another of the Earthbounds, who hurled himself straight at the Fallen. Tangled together, they staggered backwards in a whirl of feathers and blood, crashing through the remains of a shattered window.
A Fallen with a bloodied nose stumbled into her from nowhere, and she shoved him away, knocking him to the floor, jumping clear of his hands as he reached for her. And across the room, the other was waiting.
The blue lines of his tattoos writhed around his jaw, almost completely covering the grin plastered across his face. Even at this distance she could hear him taunting her. “The half-breed! I thought you’d never come.”
The burst of flame she sent his way caught him off guard, dropping him to the floor. He rolled, but picked himself up in an instant and, before she could react, hurled himself at her. And it was only as his body collided with hers that she realised the tattoos were not vines, as she had at first thought, but snakes. Actual, live snakes. And each of them was snapping at her with sharp silver fangs.
“What the...?” Horrified, she threw him off and pulled herself clear.
He crouched low, and as the snakes drew back around his face, preparing to strike, she saw him grin again. “Surprise!” He threw himself at her again, but this time she was ready, and curled her body away from his; his blow missed her throat and connected with her ribs. He staggered slightly, off balance, and Alice scrambled to her feet, pushing him away with all the force she could muster. He fell forwards, away from her, and the snakes all whipped their heads around and glared back at her, hissing and snapping their jaws. “That is not right,” Alice muttered as she ducked an Earthbound flying overhead, his wings trailing smoke.
Glancing up, she realised she was handicapping them: not being an angel, it was easy to forget that one of the greatest advantages even the Earthbounds had over the Fallen was the use of their wings. They may not be able to fly far, but they could use them enough, and by slapping a great big burning ceiling on the room to give them light, she’d levelled the playing field for the Fallen. With a ‘whoomp,’ the plane of fire shot upwards, giving the Earthbounds room to operate. The only problem was that it was now directly beneath the roof... and the roof would burn.
A cold, stabbing pain in her shoulder snapped her attention back to the fight, where an inky-blue snake was sinking its fangs into her shoulder-blade, making her yelp in pain. Inwardly, she cursed herself for letting him get so close – then clamped her hand around the snake’s head. It burst into flame, the head shrinking to ash and a ripple of fire chasing all the way back along its body to its tail. Which was tattooed onto its owner’s face.
He threw his hands up over his cheeks as the fire ripped through his skin, burning out the tattooed snakes – and when he peeled his fingers away, there was nothing left but charred flesh, and a ragged
hole in one side of his face. With a screech, he leapt at her. She tried to jump back, but lost her balance, her foot sliding on the slippery floor. She was already halfway down when he landed on her, rolling her onto her back and pinning her down, raining blows down on her as she tried to wrap her arms around her head to protect herself.
From far away, she heard a vaguely familiar voice: one of the Earthbounds, the one from Zadkiel’s choir who had spoken to her earlier. She couldn’t make out what he was saying – her ears were covered by her arms and everything was muffled – and this Fallen showed no sign of letting up. If she didn’t stop him soon, he would simply beat her to death, but she couldn’t do anything until she knew... and she couldn’t know until she heard....
Bracing herself for the pain, she pulled one arm free and wrenched her head up, hard and fast, directly into his forehead. There was an awful crack of bone as skull met skull, but he was so shocked that she’d actually headbutted him, he hesitated. Just for a moment, but it was enough; through the ringing in her ears and the thick black curtain falling around her, she heard the voice again.
“Alice! Clear!”
They were clear. There was only her left... only her, and the remaining Fallen.
The snake-man had recovered himself enough to sneer down at her. “This was easier than I was expecting. You should know that.”
“Funny,” said Alice, gritting her teeth, “I was about to say the same to you.”
She threw her arms around him, drawing him close and holding him to her as the room filled with fire.
The last thing he saw was Alice’s eyes as she pulled him in, filled with triumph and spinning flames.
THE FIRE TOOK everything. Buried everything. It made her feel safe, wrapped in the flames. And then it died away, and there was only Alice. Only Alice, lying on the floor, surrounded by ash and scorch marks. Only Alice, bloodied and bruised and aching all over. Smoke curled from the rafters, and the floor glowed in places, the steel puckered from the heat.
Alice lay on her back in the middle of the floor, breathing the boiling air and wondering exactly how much it was going to hurt when she stood up, and then she heard feathers moving above her.
“Need a lift?” The Earthbound was hovering just above her, his wings beating lazily.
“Show-off,” she groaned, easing herself upright.
He shrugged. “Floor’s a bit... unstable, thanks to you.” He pointed at a ragged hole in the floor just to Alice’s left. Something unpleasantly liquid was bubbling around the edges.
“I’ll be honest. I don’t make a habit of accepting lifts from strange men...”
“You might want to make an exception. What with the floor about to fall apart.” He held a hand out to her, and – wincing – she took it. “Name’s Castor.”
“Nice to meet you, Castor. I’m Alice.” She allowed herself to be lifted clear, and carried across the floor. Castor gently set her down on the cooler steel of the stairs.
“I know. I was at the gate into hell.”
“I missed that bit. I was... busy.” It didn’t quite cover it, but it sounded slightly better than Actually, I was fighting with my dead mother, who was trying to kill me at the time. I won.
“It was quite a show. Maybe not as big a stunt as the one you pulled: you burned hell, didn’t you?”
“No.” Her voice was sharper than she’d meant it to sound. “No. That was Michael. All Michael.” There was a worrying creak from overhead, and Alice remembered the roof. “We need to go. It’s not safe...”
As if to prove her point, a siren sounded somewhere nearby.
Half-running, half-stumbling down the stairs with her ribs and shoulders screaming, Alice felt a tug at her shoulder and Castor pressed something into her hand as he ran past her. It was small and curved, and cold. As she reached the ground, she stopped just long enough to open her fist and peer inside. A tooth. No... a fang. One of the tattoo-snake’s fangs. It had stuck in there. She stared at it for a moment, more than a little shocked – and it was only the siren sounding directly outside the front of the warehouse that brought her back to herself. Balling her fist around the tooth again, she clambered out of the same broken window she had come in, and hurried away.
TOBY HAD HEARD the siren, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of a car or fire engine now. Not that it mattered; he was only being nosy, and could do with something to brighten up the walk home from the pub. It wasn’t like sirens were a rarity these days, anyway. Not with the riots, and everything else that seemed to be going on. He’d left his friends watching the football; he wasn’t in the mood. He must have been lousy company, because they didn’t try to persuade him to stay. They weren’t exactly great conversationalists themselves this evening, but he took the hint. Besides, an early night would do him good.
He turned up the collar of his jacket and stuck his hands in his pocket, whistling tunelessly as he walked – and then something caught his eye. He’d only seen it for a second, just as he passed the end of an alley, and when he looked again there was nothing there. But it was odd; he could have sworn, really sworn that he had just seen someone moving in the alley. And – just for a moment – it had looked like they were on fire.
Satisfied there was nothing there, that it had been a trick of the light, Toby went back to his whistling and carried on towards home.
Alice pressed herself deeper into the shadows and watched him go.
CHAPTER FIVE
Broken Wings
ADRIEL DID NOT look surprised when Alice knocked on his office door. He didn’t look up at all – just gestured to the chair in front of his desk with one hand while he carried on writing with the other. It didn’t even seem to bother him that it was almost midnight and she was covered in bruises.
She pointed this out to him as she sat down.
Adriel capped his pen and set it to one side, closing his notebook and folding his hands on top of it before fixing her with a stern gaze. “And what, precisely, would you like me to say?”
“Well... nothing. I was just –”
“My dear girl, do you really think you are the only creature to walk through that door in the middle of the night? Or, indeed, the strangest?” There was a rustling sound as he sat back in his chair.
“If you put it like that, then fine.” Alice folded her arms, and winced. The pain in her ribs had decided to move right on up to the next level.
She didn’t quite know why she’d come to the funeral parlour. It wasn’t on her way home and she hadn’t exactly expected Adriel to be sympathetic. It was just that she couldn’t quite face going home to that empty room and trying to clean herself up. Now the adrenalin had faded, and the bruises were starting to ache, she just felt tired, and alone. Adriel might not be sympathetic, but at least he understood.
He may have been unimpressed by her appearance, but he was still watching her. “You would appear to have had an... active evening.”
“You could say that.” She leaned forward, ignoring the complaints from her ribs and her shoulders, and dropped the snake fang on his desk.
Looking surprised for the first time, he picked it up and turned it over in his fingers; first holding it up to the light, then – bizarrely – tapping it against one of his own teeth.
“It was in my shoulder. In. My. Shoulder. I don’t even know where to start with that.” She turned sideways in the chair, rolling her injured shoulder towards him. Two holes were clearly visible in the fabric of her jacket, and Adriel looked from the fang to Alice and back again.
“So it was you who had the run-in with Murmur. I had my suspicions. The fire, for one...” He sighed, and took a small box out of one of the drawers of his desk, dropping the tooth into it and tucking the whole thing back out of sight. “This is why I wanted you here, where I could keep an eye on you.”
“Keep an eye on me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Precisely what I said.”
“No. No, no, no. You don’t all get to treat me like I’
m some barely housetrained puppy that someone’s left with you for the weekend...”
“Puppy? I’m afraid I don’t follow the analogy.”
“It’s just... it’s like... Look, it sounded really good in my head, okay?” She slumped back in the chair.
“I’m sure it did.” He stood up. “Come with me.”
“Last time I listened to an angel who said that, I...” She tailed off when she saw the look he was giving her. The whole room darkened under his glare; shadows pooled in the corners and crept along the walls.
“It was not a request, Alice.”
Of course it wasn’t.
TRYING HER HARDEST to ignore her aching... well, everything, Alice followed him out of his office and towards the steel swing doors. The lights were off, and Alice could barely make out where his black wings stopped and the dark of the hallway began... but she knew where he was going.
The mortuary.
ALICE HAD YET to venture into the embalming suite. Not that she had any particular desire to go there, of course, but for Adriel to casually saunter through the door and tell her to follow him felt... odd. Particularly when she distinctly remembered him telling her she didn’t have to go back there. She’d hoped that would be a permanent thing. Clearly not.
The lights flicked on automatically as Adriel walked in, and a shroud of cool air wrapped around them. It smelled like disinfectant: to be fair, she’d been expecting worse. The ceiling was higher than the rest of the office, and was punctuated by a variety of ducts, pipes and vents. Around the walls was an array of what looked suspiciously like kitchen cupboards, and a plastic skeleton dangling from a noose. Alice raised an eyebrow at it, but Adriel simply shook his head. “It takes a certain kind of man to live with the dead. It isn’t your place to judge.”
“Maybe not, but that’s just all kinds of wrong.”
