by Lou Morgan
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mea Culpa
“THERE’S NO SIGN.” Zadkiel sounded tired, and didn’t look any better than he sounded. His armour had gone, and he was back in the hooded top – the one Alice was coming to think of as his ‘civilian clothes.’ Michael, however, remained in his armour, blood spatters and all. He was pacing again. He’d been doing a lot of that. She could only assume it was preferable to him setting the ceiling on fire again. He’d done that, too.
“No sign of the Fallen, no sign of Xaphan, no sign of Mallory...”
“And no sign of how they got in or out,” Michael snapped. “That’s what I’m most interested in, Zak.”
“Alice already told you that. The bus, remember?”
“No.” Michael shook his head. “That’s how they got here, not how they got in.”
“There’s a thousand ways...”
“Believe me, Zak, there aren’t. I know every stone of this fortress, and I’m telling you that I can count the ways into it on the fingers of one hand. So I want to know how they got in, and I want to know now!” The room shook as he raised his voice, but Zak merely blinked at him.
“I’ll do my best, Michael, but I think you already know what happened.”
“No. That’s not it.”
“Yes, it is. Whether you want to admit it or not.”
“Who, then? Who would you have me blame?”
“Whoever let them in.” Zadkiel shrugged and stared out of the window.
Alice looked at the two of them. “What about Mallory? And Vin? And Jester?”
“What about them?” Michael asked.
“Don’t you care what’s happened to them?”
“Not especially, no,” he snapped back at her, making her widen her eyes in shock. “Mallory and Vin are soldiers. They are soldiers who were foolish enough to be captured, and they understand the consequences of this. My priority is to keep the priory secure.”
“But...”
“No. No, Alice. You do not get to have an opinion, you do not get to criticise my actions, and above all, you do not presume to give me orders!”
“Wow. You’re a fruitcake. You know that?”
“I’m sorry... what?” Michael’s temper evaporated and Alice suddenly had his full attention. She wasn’t sure that this was necessarily a good thing.
“You know. Nuts. Mad. Bonkers. Psycho. Crazy. Two biscuits short of a packet. Not quite the full shilling...”
“You’re trying my patience, Alice. If you have a point, now is the time to make it. And make sure it’s valid.”
“You’re threatening me.”
“I don’t make threats...”
“Because that sounds like a threat.”
“No. My telling you that if you don’t have a reason for all... that, I could kill you; that’s not a threat. My telling you that I would kill you without a second thought, and then find and kill Mallory, Vhnori and anyone you’ve ever called a friend... not a threat.” He leaned forward. “It would be a promise.” He glared at her, and his eyes were liquid fire.
It crossed Alice’s mind that this might have been slightly the wrong approach. But it was too late to do anything other than carry on.
“My point is that you’re apparently happy to leave Mallory and Vin to rot while you go on some kind of witch-hunt.”
“And?”
“They could help. If you...”
“You need to stop talking, Alice.”
“I just...”
“Now, Alice.”
“You...”
“Alice!” Michael’s voice had risen to a roar again, and Alice flinched. Michael, however, was determined to make his point – and slowly, deliberately, he walked towards her, sparks hissing across his open wings and scattering across the floor. “Before you extol the virtues of two of my angels to me any further, I should remind you that Vhnori is an Earthbound, serving out punishment for his crimes. Moreover, he and his half-born have mostly been taken by the Fallen in retaliation for the unsanctioned torture of one of Lucifer’s preferred generals.”
“Unsanctioned...?”
“And while I hate to be the bearer of bad news...”
“Michael!” Zadkiel interrupted, suddenly at Alice’s side. Alice frowned as Zadkiel held out a hand towards the other Archangel. “Don’t.”
“Why? She should know, shouldn’t she? After all, this is the man she holds up as a shining beacon of all that angels should be.”
“Should know... what?” asked Alice, with a familiar sinking feeling.
Michael smiled coldly at her. “About Mallory.”
“Is he... Did he...?” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“Dead?” Michael laughed. “No. Not dead.”
Alice sagged with sudden relief, which was replaced almost immediately by a chill. “Wait... You think he did this?”
Zadkiel turned from Michael to Alice. “You have to admit, it doesn’t look good. Not given the circumstances...”
“The circumstances? I was there, with him. The whole time. You know that!” She could hear her voice getting higher, louder.
“It’s not that...” Zadkiel tailed off, refusing to meet her eye.
Michael laughed again. Laughed at her, this time: laughed at her confusion, laughed at her obvious fear.
“The circumstances, Alice, are that someone has betrayed us. And when it comes to betrayal, Mallory is the first one among us I would suspect.”
“Mallory? No! I don’t understand! Why...” Alice saw Zadkiel step back, his eyes still fixed on the floor. Michael smiled straight at her.
“Because he’s done it before.”
A LOUD RINGING filled Alice’s ears. Across the room, she could see Zadkiel’s mouth moving; could see him gesturing angrily at Michael, but all she heard was white noise.
Mallory. Betrayal?
The buzz in her ears receded, and she could just about make out Zadkiel shouting the word “dramatic” at Michael – who was still watching her. Watching, no doubt, to see what she would do next. He had wanted to subdue her, hadn’t he? It had worked; she had nothing to say.
“...now really the time?” Zadkiel finished. Michael continued to ignore him. Eventually, he rubbed his hand across his eyes and sighed. “Zak?”
“Michael.”
“You’re dismissed.”
“What?”
“Dismissed.” He didn’t even look at Zadkiel – who opened and closed his mouth once or twice, then gave up. With one last backward glance at Alice, he stormed out of the room, leaving just the two of them.
“You were warned about Mallory,” Michael said, circling her; his hands were in his pockets, his tone almost casual. “I know you were: I’ve seen it in your memories. That Fallen, the one you knew.”
“Rob.”
“Abbadona. That was his name. Use it. He warned you about Mallory; told you that Lucifer was afraid of him. That they all were.”
“He told me... he said that you would have to be mad not to be afraid of him.”
“A slight exaggeration, perhaps, but sound in theory. Mallory is wild, uncontrollable. Unpredictable.”
“I didn’t see you complaining about that earlier. You know, before you accused him of being a traitor.”
“Unpredictability has its uses. Particularly when your enemy is like ours.” Michael waved her comment away. “But tell me – seeing as you know so very much about him – why is Lucifer so afraid of Mallory? Why has he made it his personal mission to destroy not me... but Mallory? And you with him? He could have killed you in hell, and you could not have stopped him, if that’s what he wanted; gift or no gift. You walked out of hell because he let you. I know him better than anyone else. Me, he just wants to defeat. You, however, he wants to destroy. You and Mallory both.”
Alice blinked back tears, determined not to show the Archangel how much his words hurt. Because hurt they did. Even if it had crossed her mind more than once that Lucifer could have killed her. Even if Rob�
��s warning about the angels not telling her everything had rung in her head for months. It had been at the back of her mind every time she had gone out, looking for the Fallen; every time she had found one. Every time she had fought them. What if Lucifer had simply let her go? What did that mean?
Something more than fear wound its way around her heart, into her throat, threading itself through her. Doubt.
“You were a librarian, were you not?” Michael suddenly asked. Alice simply stared back at him, dazed.
“Am. Not was. Am.” It was an automatic answer, and technically, it wasn’t true. What she was, currently, was the Angel of Death’s receptionist. And even then, she was on what was best described as a sabbatical.
“I have something to show you. Come with me.”
“Where?”
“My library, of course. Where else?”
THERE WAS NO door. Of course there wasn’t. Because that was something normal people had: doors, and stairs. And bookshelves. Alice had always considered bookshelves to be an integral part of the library experience.
Not here.
Michael hadn’t given her a chance to respond; had simply snatched up her hand. The world had spun, lost in a blur of scarlet and woodsmoke. Up became down became up became down... and that was it. She was standing in the middle of the strangest library she had ever seen.
It was circular, the walls curving up to a dome above her head. The floor was made of wooden boards that followed the line of the walls; sweeping past and beneath her and polished to such a shine that she could see herself reflected in them. There were no windows – and, strangely for this place, no candles. The light seemed to seep out from the walls themselves: soft and white and everywhere at once. The room glowed.
About halfway between the floor and the curve of the dome, a narrow gallery ran the entire circumference of the walls, jutting out from them with no visible support as though it had just grown there. And everywhere, there were books and papers, piled high on the floor, on tables, on chairs. Hanging from the walls between carvings and what looked like reliefs of faces, draped across stools... everywhere. The air smelled of paper and ink and dust... and Alice just stared.
“How do you like it?” Michael asked, standing beside her and watching her take in her surroundings.
“It’s extraordinary,” she whispered. And then, she saw it. Half-hidden among the other carvings on the wall ahead of her; a small, square relief of three angels. One was clearly Michael: a crown of blazing fire upon his head and his sword in his hand. One was fairly obviously Lucifer, bound in chains, a cloud emerging from his mouth. And between them, his face solemn, even in stone, was Mallory.
Alice lifted her fingers to the stone, hesitating an inch or so before they touched it. It was him, clearly him. Mallory. Between Michael and Lucifer... watching as Lucifer Fell.
She urged her fingers forward and they grazed the carven Mallory’s face. He looked so serious, and so sad. It was so lifelike that she half-expected the stone to give under the pressure of her touch, to see him flinch. To see him blink.
“What is this?” she asked Michael, hearing the floor creak behind her.
“The truth,” he said. “The reason Lucifer fears Mallory. Fears him and hates him. Because he trusted him, and Mallory betrayed him. To me.”
“To you? But...”
“There was no-one Lucifer trusted more than Mallory. When he planned his little coup, who do you think he turned to first?”
“Mallory...” The name came out as a whisper.
“Mallory. And Mallory, being the creature that he is, came to me.”
“He turned him in.” She saw it flash by in her mind’s eye: Lucifer walking into a room much like the one she was in; finding Mallory waiting for him. A question hanging in the air. “Mallory, why are you armed?” And Mallory, clad in his armour and with his hand on the sword she had never seen him use, turning his back on his oldest friend.
“He turned him in. Everything that has come since...”
“You mean Mallory started the war?”
“Lucifer started the war. Mallory, well, Mallory was trying to prevent it.” Michael sighed. “Much good that it did us.” He drew away from her, back into the middle of the room. “Look at the banner,” he said, pointing to a wide stripe that ran around the walls, just above head height. It was covered with symbols Alice didn’t recognise. She tore her eyes away from the carving of the angels and looked, but could make no sense of them. They were familiar, somehow, and yet alien. There were thousands of them; hundreds of thousands, running on forever around Michael’s library.
“Names,” he said.
“Names?” She stretched up, running her fingers across one of the symbols. “These are letters?”
“No. These are names. Each one an angel lost to the war.”
Alice’s hand snapped back. “But there are...”
“Countless names. Not quite. I count them. I know the tally.”
“Who put them here?”
“Adriel, of course.” Michael brushed his hair back from his forehead. “We remember. The Fallen had their river of blood. I have this.” He waved at the wall. “Mallory has his books.”
“His books...” A memory scraped at the edge of Alice’s mind. Notebooks. Notebooks filled with scrawled letters and shapes, utterly indecipherable. Pages spilling across a dirty floor...
“That’s your handwriting? I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s not shorthand; what kind of language is it?”
“Mine.”
“He keeps track? Of all of them?”
“He feels he must.”
“Oh, Mallory.” It was all she could say, even though he wasn’t there to hear it.
Suddenly, she understood. She understood him. She understood it all, and she turned to face Michael. “We have to find him.”
“Why? Because this changes anything? How? Simply because you now know something, does it make what went before any less true? Mallory is still a soldier. Still a prisoner. Still a loose cannon, and I still can’t trust him. So he stays where he is.”
“I trust him.”
“And I don’t trust you.” His tone was flat. Hard. “Everything I have done for you, and I still can’t trust you.” He folded his arms, his eyes raking over her. “Some would ask why I give so much to a traitor’s brat, who consorts with traitors. How can you be anything more than the sum of your parts? Human. Traitor. Fool. Weak.”
“By ‘some,’ you mean Gabriel.” It was almost funny. “He’s not exactly perfect, either.”
“Perhaps not. But who is?”
“I am more. More than that.”
“Are you? I wonder.” It wasn’t a threat this time. It wasn’t even a question. More than anything, Michael seemed to be thinking aloud. There was silence then: the kind of silence that settles in libraries and places where old books are kept. A silence which was thick and soft and knowing and full of the names of the dead. He walked away from her, his footsteps heavy on the shining boards, and his back was still to her as he started to speak, louder now and clearer. A challenge. “Prove it.”
“What?”
“Prove it to me. Prove that you are more than the things that make you. Give me your life, Alice. That’s how this works. Give your life to me. Give your life for me. Bleed for me, burn for me – and in return, I would die for you. Kill for you. I will tear down the stars if only you ask. Prove them wrong. Prove Gabriel wrong. Prove me wrong.” He spun on his heel and his eyes locked on to hers, and there was no fire behind them. For once, Michael’s eyes did not burn. “Prove you are all that you can be. All that you could be. Prove that you are more than you should be.”
He finished speaking, and the silence wrapped itself around them both again, because Alice had no answer.
ZADKIEL STOOD ON the top of the outer wall, looking out at the sea. Something wasn’t right; he could feel it, deep down in his bones. Something felt wrong, felt off. It felt like betrayal – Michael was right, of th
at much Zak was sure. He sighed, and opened his mind to No Man’s Land. A thought, a flicker, a memory... anything; but there was only darkness beneath the touch of his mind. Darkness and the sound of the waves.
“The castle is beset, within and without,” said Castor, leaning on the stone beside him. Zak hadn’t noticed him come out onto the wall, and didn’t acknowledge him. Not that it bothered Castor. He rested his elbows back against the wall, propping himself up with his back to the sea. “That’s what you’re thinking.”
“One of us has to be at least a little poetic.”
“I’m a policeman, mate. What do I know about poetry?”
“Don’t.” Zadkiel turned his head towards Castor and gave him a hard stare. “With anyone else, fine. But not with me.” He turned back to the sea again, but repeated himself. “Not with me.”
“I forgave you, you know,” said Castor, almost conversational. “You never thought I could, did you? But I did. I forgave you the second they cut me loose. Well. As soon as my wings stopped aching, at least.”
“Forgave me? For what?”
“I know what you did. You protected me, didn’t you? It was either you or Gabriel, and you volunteered. You were the one who banished me. You were the one who cut my wings. Because you knew that Gabriel would take them forever.”
“And I knew that you would hate me for it.” Zadkiel was still staring at the sea, but his voice strained as he spoke. “Better that than to see you Fall.”
“I could never hate you, Zak.” Castor smiled, straightening up. “You’re supposed to be able to read minds, you dickhead: couldn’t you see?”
“I didn’t look. I couldn’t bring myself to.” Despite himself, Zadkiel’s face cracked into a smile. “And you watch your mouth. I’m still your Archangel.”
“Still.” Castor watched as Zadkiel sighed; turned away from the sea to face him. He saw the smile reach his eyes – then saw it rapidly fade, flashing through first horror, then determination. He moved fast, but it seemed so slow: Zak’s hand reaching out to Castor, his fingers closing on his shoulder, pushing him down to the floor, hard and fast and with little regard for anything as Zadkiel stood over him.
