by Lou Morgan
“No. You’re right. I didn’t.”
“Wanker.”
“Ingrate.”
“Are we done here?” Zadkiel was leaning against the wall, watching them. “And while we’re on the subject, have you two considered some kind of joint therapy?”
“We’re done.” Mallory gave Alice a look, and she pulled a face at him as he turned his back.
“Anyone injured? No?” Zadkiel waited, then shrugged. “Good work. Corridor’s secure. Pollux? You stay here and keep it that way. Just you.” He shot a glance at Alice. “Castor? Vhnori, Mallory. With me. Alice – you too.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Michael.”
“And what about this?” She gestured back at the bodies on the floor. There were too many of them. Far too many. And one of them had thanked her as he died.
“You’re right. I don’t suppose you could...”
“Take care of it?”
“I could, of course, always tell Michael that you refused...” Zadkiel shrugged.
“Because Michael knows how much I enjoy being told what to do, is that it? It’s funny: you all like reminding me that I’m not one of you, until it suits you to say otherwise. And then you expect me to follow orders.”
“Now you listen to me.” Zadkiel dropped his voice to a low hiss. “This is a war. The war. There is no stopping; no getting out. You’re in this – just like the rest of us – to the end. So, frankly, I don’t give a shit if you do it because you’re following orders, or because you want to make it through the day alive, or because you like the look of my fucking haircut. Just get it done.”
Alice stared at him, and felt a flush creeping up her cheeks, but was determined to stand her ground.
“You didn’t say please.”
“Excuse me?”
“You didn’t say please.”
“I didn’t say please?”
“No.”
“Fine. Alice: would you please take care of this?”
“Seeing as you asked nicely...” She shrugged; out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Castor giving her a thumbs-up and Vin trying to hide a smile behind his hand. Even Mallory seemed to have succumbed to a mysterious coughing fit.
“Pollux? You might not want to be in the middle of the corridor. But, you know, up to you...” She waited for him to move back to the doorway with the others, and knelt down on the floor, placing her hands on the stone.
The paving was sticky, stained; scuffed and scraped by boots and smeared with blood. Closer to it, she could smell the Fallen – a thick, oily, greasy scent, mixed with burning feathers. It turned her stomach.
She was used to the Fallen. She’d faced them often enough: on the streets and in hell. She knew how they worked. And yet, there was something that felt wrong here. Something about the way they had come at her... then stopped. Something about the eyes of the man who had burned. Something didn’t add up.
But apparently it wasn’t her job to ask questions. She rolled her eyes, knowing Zadkiel couldn’t see her... and was alarmed when he cleared his throat loudly behind her.
“Don’t think that because I can’t see you, I don’t know what’s going on in your head. Just to make that clear. Now, can we...?”
“Angels.” Alice sighed, and she set the floor alight.
Fire snaked along the stone; the candles flared as their flames clung to the walls, spreading up and out and along until the whole of the corridor was an inferno.
The angels stepped back from the arched doorway, forced back by the heat. Even Mallory was driven back, although not for one second did he take his eyes off the flames.
When Alice walked out of the corridor, the fire closing like a curtain behind her, the first thing she saw was the look of relief on Mallory’s face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
This Aspect of Iron
IF ALICE THOUGHT the corridor was bad, the place Michael had called the ‘scriptorium’ was worse. And it was hot. Unbearably hot. Turning the corner into it was like walking straight into a hot metal wall. Vin felt it first, spinning back on his heel. “What the fuck...?”
The stone all around them was steaming. Clouds of vapour poured out of the round stone columns which ran in parallel rows down the centre of the room, supporting the vaulted roof. Sunlight streamed through broad arched windows tucked beneath the ceiling, and a huge stone fireplace dominated one end of the room, more than tall enough for an angel to stand in with his wings outstretched. Alice could be fairly confident of that, because she could see one doing just that. He was bringing his sword down onto something furry, something dark; something that writhed beneath him and then went limp as the blade struck home.
Fire clung to the stone ribs of the ceiling, making them glow a deep red. And beneath them, Michael’s choir moved between the columns, their breastplates shining white in the heat. In the midst of it all stood Michael: armoured, his sword raised and his eyes blazing. Flames curled from the tips of his wings and the ends of his hair and his eyes were white-hot with fire, and Alice wondered if that was how she looked. Surely not. She was just Alice, while he was an Archangel, and he moved this way and that – never stopping – his sword slicing through the air like silk. Behind him was another fireplace, the same size, but this one heaped with... piles of fur. They were charred. Alice looked away, but found her eyes drawn back to Michael.
One of the Fallen knelt before him, chin tilted up towards the roof, and Michael’s face as he looked down was completely calm. There was nothing there – no rage, no triumph. Nothing. Just Michael towering over the Fallen with his sword raised. Alice couldn’t move, couldn’t think: all she could do was watch as he whirled around the kneeling figure, a column of flame, stopping behind him and driving his sword, point-down and shining in the heat, into the spine of the defeated Fallen.
There was a sharp cracking sound from somewhere across the room and she whipped around. Mallory was right behind her, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. “When we met, I told you that Gabriel would be the last of us. Do you see why?” He pointed to the far corner of the hall, which was alive with white light. Lightning arced from pillar to pillar and bounced back into the steam. There was a yelp, and then silence... and Gabriel strode out of the steam, wreathed in flickering sparks. Everything that was absent from Michael’s face was there, in his: rage, fury, pure loathing. And madness.
There were only angels left now: angels and what was left of the invaders, crumpled on the floor.
“Michael. The dogs. We need to discuss...” one of Michael’s choir, a Descended with burning wings, shouted.
Michael tossed his sword to another angel, who caught it, although it almost took his head off.
“I don’t see anything to discuss. They brought dogs. Why would that be unexpected?”
“But...”
“It means nothing. Forfax’s little pets. Nothing more than that.”
“Dogs?” asked Alice, raising an eyebrow at Mallory.
“Dogs.” He replied. “Forfax: one of the Twelve. He breeds them; feeds them on human flesh.” He paused as she shuddered. “I know, I know. We thought they had all burned with hell. Obviously we were wrong.”
“And that’s...” She waved in the direction of the fireplace and the furry thing. It now looked a little less furry and a little more gooey.
“Yep.”
“You know, just when I think I’ve got a handle on... all this, you somehow manage to raise the bar. Every time.”
“They’re just dogs, Alice. Bastard dogs with big fucking teeth...”
“...which eat people...”
“Which eat people, yes, but they’re still just dogs.” He rubbed his temple with the barrel of his gun, and pulled a face. “Although. Maybe you do have a point,” he conceded, as Michael came through the steam toward them.
Zadkiel stepped forward to meet him. “South corridor’s secure.”
“You contained them?”
“We did.”
“And you killed them?”
“Every last one.” Zadkiel leaned closer to Michael and murmured something to him, making him laugh. He raised an eyebrow, and moved around Zadkiel to Alice.
“So. I hear you can follow orders after all.”
“He asked me nicely.”
“Did he? Must be losing his touch.” Michael rubbed his hands together, pulled a small red cloth from beneath a wrist guard and wiped his fingers with it before tucking it back into his armour. “Gabriel!”
“Here,” he answered. Alice took an instinctive step backwards – although not as large a step as Vin.
Michael held his hand out towards the other angel, who took it and knelt. “I think it’s time.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve earned it. And I’m told we need the numbers.” With his free hand, Michael traced a shape in the air above Gabriel’s head, twisting and looping his fingers around each other and leaving faint trails of fire in the clearing steam.
“You may want to take another step back,” said Zadkiel, who was suddenly about five paces behind them. Alice frowned.
“Wh...” She didn’t get to finish the sentence.
There was a deafening crack – and another, and another – and a wind howled through the hall, rushing between the columns and whistling as it went. But it was the lightning that sent Alice scrambling backwards, as two bolts smacked into the stone an inch in front of her feet.
“I did warn you,” said Zadkiel, his arms folded.
Lightning filled the hall; slamming into the walls and floor and curling around the columns. It lit the whole space up with bright, clear light, and the smell of ozone filled the air. Gabriel and Michael were lost in the glare... then, as soon as it had come, it was gone: the light fading to a dim point on Gabriel’s chest, and then to nothing.
Slowly, Gabriel stood. He stretched out his wings, and Alice bit her lip. They were restored: bright white and crackling with electricity, and sweeping the floor behind him as he stretched.
Gabriel was an Archangel again.
“Oh, shit,” said Vin, speaking for all of them. Gabriel heard him; his head snapped round, blinking at them. A cold smile flashed across his face, but was gone in an instant.
“Just what we need,” Mallory said out of the side of his mouth. If Gabriel heard the barb, he didn’t rise to it. Instead, he straightened up and looked Michael in the eye, nodding once. Michael nodded back, his eyes searching Gabriel’s face, then he turned abruptly and went to inspect one of the fireplaces, where two members of his choir were standing to attention. The others might as well have melted into the stone or blown away on the wind; there was no sign of them. The lump in the fireplace smouldered gently.
“Well, Mallory,” Gabriel said, the smile spreading back across his face. “Perhaps, seeing as you and your little friends are still here, you might like to make yourselves useful by finding out exactly what happened to those prisoners you seem to have lost...”
“I lost?” Mallory’s jaw tensed.
“Your prisoners, your problem.” Gabriel arched an eyebrow at them.
“Just like old times, I see.”
“Just like old times.” Gabriel locked his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “Find them. That’s an order.”
“BUT WE ALREADY know what’s happened here: even Alice can work this one out, right?”
“Oi!”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, right.”
Alice and Vin were slouching down yet another corridor behind Mallory, ‘following orders.’ Vin had taken to making little quote marks in the air with his fingers every time the phrase came up. Mallory had taken to kicking him every time he did it.
Zadkiel said something about needing to check the remaining corridors. “The priory is secure, but I need to be sure there’s no more surprises.”
“That wasn’t a surprise. That was a diversion, and you know it.” Mallory didn’t bother to hide the frustration in his voice – Archangel or not. Zadkiel’s shoulders dropped a little.
“I know. The question is: what didn’t they want us to see?”
“A big show of force and Xaphan and Florence disappearing... you don’t think those two might be slightly connected?”
“If you think that’s all there is to this, Mallory, you’re as big a fool as Gabriel seems to take you for.”
Zadkiel flicked his fingers up in a gesture which could have been a salute and smiled sadly, handing Mallory’s second gun back to him.
“Thank you for the weapon. Castor! With me.” He shot Alice a look, and strode off down the corridor with Castor, leaving the three of them alone.
“The guy’s a master of the backhanded compliment, I’ll give him that,” Mallory sighed. “I’m still not sure how to take that one.”
“I guess it depends on what you make of Gabriel,” said Alice.
Mallory snorted. “Mmm. Speaking of whom, seeing as Senor Sparky is back in Michael’s good graces, we’d better trot along on our little errand, hadn’t we?” He checked the gun’s magazine, ejected it and slotted in a fresh one from his pocket. “And after that little performance, I don’t care what Xaph’s got to say for himself. If he so much as sniffs at me, I’m going to give him an exciting new hole to breathe out of.”
THEY AMBLED THROUGH the corridors without any real urgency, and Alice wondered if they were as tired as she was. Neither Mallory nor Vin showed any sign of flagging, but both of them were dusty and covered in battle scars. There was no way they could still be feeling fresh. She caught herself... and then relaxed. There was no Zadkiel here, peering into her thoughts. Knowing that felt like a huge weight lifting from her shoulders: she hadn’t realised how hard she found it, always feeling that someone might be listening. Strangely, she didn’t care if Michael could see what was going on in her head: he wouldn’t like what he found, and if she was honest, it served him right. Zadkiel, though... Zadkiel was different. Unlike Michael, it appeared that he really did listen. And he remembered.
A rattling sound pulled her back to the corridor. Mallory was shaking the handle of a door, a little louder than was strictly necessary. “I think it’s locked,” Alice said pointedly.
“The question is whether it’s locked from the outside, or the inside. And if it’s locked from the inside, who locked it?”
“I also think you’re taking this a bit personally.”
“You bet I’m taking it personally.” Mallory gave up rattling the handle and kicked the door. It sprang free of its hinges with a popping sound and dropped through the frame, leaving Mallory tumbling after it.
Into thin air.
Mallory swore as he hurtled down the sheer stone wall and toward the rocks far below, snapping his wings open and beating them once, twice to bring him back up to the level of the doorway. He floated outside, peering back in.
“Well, that was unexpected.” He folded his wings as he stepped back onto firm ground, and leaned out into empty space again, looking down at the rocks.
“I should have known it was you lot from the noise,” said a new voice, and Alice spun round.
There, framed in a doorway across the corridor – one which did not appear to lead to a messy death – was a solidly-built man with green eyes and black hair slashed across with white. The shadows of old bruises were visible across one of his cheeks, but he looked well enough, and he was watching them with barely-disguised amusement.
Jester.
Alice was almost knocked off her feet as Vin barged past her, charging Jester and flinging an arm around his shoulders, slapping him on the back... then apparently changing his mind and standing back with his arms folded.
“Do you have any idea how worried we were? How worried I was?”
“No, Mum.”
“Piss off.” Vin scowled – particularly when he heard Mallory snigger.
He turned back to Jester. “You do realise the mess you’ve made, right?”
“Mess? Wha
t mess?” Jester looked puzzled, glancing from Vin to Mallory and Alice. He closed his eyes slowly. Sadly. “It’s her, isn’t it?”
“Florence? Yes.”
“What’s my sister done this time?”
“Where do I start?”
“Probably after I tell you that whatever you think, it’s not true.”
“I had a horrible feeling you were about to say that...”
What Jester told them made Alice’s stomach knot. Mallory nodded, his face sober. Vin turned an increasingly queasy shade of grey beneath his sunglasses.
Jester had said he needed some time, and had gone for a walk on the streets of Hong Kong; not going anywhere particular, just walking. Hands in his pockets, he had wandered through Sai Wan and as far as Fung Mat Road – almost as far as the market and the water. He’d lost track of time, been waiting to cross the road... and that was when he thought he had seen her. Just a glimpse of her, through a crowd. Florence. He froze, and then he had started to edge through the people around him, shouldering them aside until he had a clear view of her. It was her. Standing on the opposite side. Alone.
Something had made him turn around. He didn’t know what it was, even as he told Alice and the others about it. But something had, and as he turned, he saw her standing behind him. With Xaphan.
And Jester had done the only thing he could. Run.
He had been running back to the apartment, hoping he could keep them off his back long enough to reach Vin and Sari. Hoping that he could lose them in the streets... and then he had realised that he was leading them straight to Vin, too. That was enough to stop him right where he was.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see people being jostled, shoved, pushed aside as the Fallen came for him. They had surrounded him, and he hadn’t even known it. He had taken a deep breath... and then there had been a soft thud and the sound of feathers behind him, and he had looked over his shoulder to see an angel he immediately knew to be Zadkiel, and who had simply told him to close his eyes. So he had.
“And then, I’m here.” Jester held out his hands to illustrate his point.
“Let me get this straight.” Mallory said. “They came for you. In Hong Kong.”
