Blood and Feathers (36 page)

C
HARON’S HEAD SNAPPED
up. Azazel watched as she dropped her blade and vanished in a cloud of ice-cold air.

They were here.

The torches dotted through the Fallens’ ranks flared, then blinked out, one by one.

He lifted the standard high above the crowd of Fallen that had formed in front of him, driven back by the Earthbounds’ attacks, and balanced it on his hip, freeing up one of his hands. Keeping his eyes on the breached Gate, he fumbled behind his back until he found the small tube strapped between his wings. No more waiting.

The tube unclipped easily and dropped into the palm of his hand. He snapped his arm round just as the first shadow spilled from the rubble of the Gate, leeching across the rock towards them. He lifted his arm and fired just as the darkness overtook him.

All was noise and confusion and impossible, visible darkness, and at first he thought he had misjudged it, left it too late. But as he braced the standard, braced himself for the attack, his flare burned into life above, casting a strobing blue light across the field. One by one, the other torchbearers fired their own flares, and there was at least a kind of light to fight by. If the angels thought that snuffing out hell’s lights would help them, they were going to get a surprise. He smiled, and nodded to the closest of his comrades, who had caught his eye. “Let’s see what they do now,” he said smugly.

“How about this?” whispered the voice beside him, and all he saw was a flash of metal as the other Fallen melted away before his eyes.

Azazel dropped the standard, and drew his knife.

A
LL WAS NOISE
and confusion and darkness, and Mallory knew that somewhere –
somewhere
– just ahead of him was the Fallen he had been hoping to see. The sheer gut-force of his hatred still surprised him, even now. Cropped dark hair, and those clothes... the Fallen weren’t exactly known for their dress sense. It could only be Rimmon. And this time, when Mallory caught up with him, he was going to
stay
dead.

He knew that he wouldn’t be able to stay away, just as he hadn’t been able to keep away from the Gate. Just as he hadn’t been able to keep away from the Halfway when news of Alice started to spread. Of course he would be there, somewhere on the field, if only to be sure that Mallory would see him. Obviously, he hadn’t taken the hint, not even when Mallory tied him to the tree and shot holes in him. He was an itch that couldn’t be scratched, a fly that couldn’t be swatted. A splinter in the soul that dug in deeper with every attempt to remove it. Mallory had long accepted that Rimmon was just another part of his punishment, but he was also beginning to think that this was the one part he could do something about. It wasn’t revenge. Not really...

He had only caught a glimpse – a fraction of a moment – but it was enough. The battle melted around him.

And then the shadows came.

It could only mean one thing, and for that he was glad. It was time the Descendeds put in an appearance. But in the darkness, he lost his prey, and although he forced his way forward using his elbows, his fists and his boots, by the time the Fallen had lit their torches, Rimmon was gone. He scanned the faces, searching for him, but there was no sign.

So intent was he on his search that he didn’t notice the Fallen with a scar down one side of his face, one eye long gone, who saw him and grinned. He had a long knife in his hand, its blade cut with jagged teeth and notches, and he raised it as he stepped behind Mallory, the point aimed for the back of his neck. And all the while, Mallory was still, his eyes tearing the battle apart as the Fallen struck.

T
HERE WAS A
sound of the air splitting in two, and the faint smell of ozone, and Mallory spun around as Gwyn, armour-clad, tossed the bleeding Fallen aside.

“You, of all people, I expected to watch your back.”

“You took your time.”

“On the contrary. My timing, as ever, was impeccable.” Gwyn sniffed, smoothing his hair back. “You can thank me later.”

“I had him. I
had
him, Gwyn.”

“Hardly. He almost got you killed, and he didn’t have to lift a finger to do it. He’s fitting right in, isn’t he?”

“Don’t you have something better to do?” Mallory raised a gun and, for an instant, Gwyn wondered if he was going to shoot him. Mallory abruptly adjusted his aim and fired twice, hitting both the Fallen who were charging towards them.

Gwyn scowled at him. “Status?”

“Unknown. They’re chaotic: every man for himself. And there’s a lot of them. They’re using the walls to protect their flanks – no way round, unless we go airborne, which brings me to the nets.”

“Nets?” Gwyn’s eyes snapped open as wide as they would go. “Tell me about the nets.”

“Like nothing I’ve seen before. They won’t just bring you down; they kill. They wait until there’s a handful of us in the air and then...” Mallory stopped, glancing all around him; taking stock. “I can’t see where they’re deploying from. Maybe they’re firing them from down here, maybe they’ve got something up above.” He nodded upwards, and Gwyn followed his gaze past the pale blue flares hanging high above. “And don’t even get me started on those lights.”

“So, in short, you know nothing?”

“That’s pretty much the sum of it.” Mallory gave the closest thing he dared to a shrug.

Gwyn sighed. “And Alice?”

“I don’t know. I thought...”

“As far as we’re aware, the device is still running. The hellmouths are holding. Perhaps she’s failed. Perhaps she’s...”

“Not Alice. She won’t fail, Gwyn. Give her time.”

“There
is
no more time.” Gwyn looked distracted, then flicked his fingers towards something on his left. Electricity arced past Mallory’s ear, and there was a horrible cry behind him.

“I’m not having this discussion again, Gwyn. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little... busy.” Mallory fed more bullets into one of his guns. “You wanted to bring the fight to the Fallen? Here we are. And so much for their attention being focused elsewhere. They were ready.
More
than ready.”

“And how many of the Twelve have you seen out here, Mallory? You tell me that.” Gwyn didn’t wait for an answer. He spread his wings, showering the ground with white sparks, and, nets or no nets, he soared overhead.

In the middle of the battle, Mallory was suddenly still. He had seen Azazel, yes. He had even seen Charon. But the rest of the Twelve... where
were
they? They should be here. The Gate had never been breached before. Why were the Twelve not defending it? Mallory didn’t believe for a second that Alice’s presence was a distraction. If anything, he would have expected
this
to be the diversion, and a grand one at that.

His fingers twitched slightly. There was something happening that he didn’t understand, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. But it didn’t change the fact that he was a soldier, and he was standing at the heart of a war. He loaded his guns, and was moving again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Wheels Within Wheels

A
LICE DIDN’T KNOW
where she was going. It wasn’t that she was lost, exactly, more that someone else seemed to be in charge of where she put her feet. They moved entirely of their own accord, following a path she couldn’t see. She was just a passenger, along for the ride.

Left, right. Left, right. Down corridors and passageways. Through doorways. Under archways. Past a long row of metal bars set back from the wall, separating her from the space beyond. A space where something squeaked and gibbered and made unspeakable sounds.

There were other noises too: distant shouts and cries. Metal on metal, and every once in a while, something like an explosion. It was far above, and far removed, and didn’t seem to matter. Only one thing mattered. She just wasn’t sure what that
was
, exactly. Still, her feet seemed to know.

She stopped abruptly in front of a small door. A hatch, cut into the rock. And as she reached for the handle, Alice was surprised to see the fire that jumped from her fingers and into the lock, burning it from the inside out so that the door sprang open.

I didn’t do that
, she thought, but if she hadn’t, then who had? The idea of someone else being in charge of the fire did
not
make her happy. She tried raising her hand, and nothing happened.
Not liking this
, she thought. She tried again, and although it felt as though she was pushing against water – a whole
lot
of water – there was give in it, and she felt it. She tried once more, begging her body to listen... and with a dizzying rush, she was herself, and in control again.

“Well, that was... odd,” she said, surprised at how hoarse she sounded. Her head felt heavy and damp and unfamiliar, and she wondered what had happened to her. There had been pain, and fire – a lot of both, come to think of it – and then a warm, white fuzziness which had wrapped itself around her like wool. She could remember everything that had just happened, and she bit down against an unexpected spike of pain as she did, but it almost felt like it had happened to someone
else
. Shock, perhaps. It did things like that, didn’t it?

So how had she wound up here? And where was
here
, anyway?

She ducked her head and stepped through the hatch.

Beyond it was a low-ceilinged passageway which she had to stoop even further to walk down. It wound away into the rock ahead of her and she bumped along it, scraping her head, her back, her arms as she went. The further she went, the smaller it seemed to become, and the further it seemed to go on; with each step it felt as though the walls might suddenly collapse in on her and bury her or crush her. She fought the urge to scream, fought the panic rising in her throat, fought the tell-tale pricking of her fingers, and she breathed.

It was a trick, a disguise. Just as the angels hid their wings in plain sight, so this was hiding something. It wasn’t real; not at all.

She closed her eyes tightly, shoving the choking claustrophobia to the back of her brain, and then opened them again, slowly.

She was standing in a doorway. There was no passage, no sharp stone walls beyond. Just a room with some surprisingly shiny wood panelling, given this
was
still hell. A few details aside, it was the kind of room which wouldn’t look out of place in an old boys’ club: dark wooden walls, a polished floor covered in worn rugs. A desk, topped with green leather. A few chairs – old, and well-used. A roaring fire in the fireplace.

Of course, the devil’s in the details, and they weren’t exactly minor. The room was octagonal; the pictures on the walls not oils of landscapes and gentry but of men and women torn to pieces by wild beasts and savage machines. The fire crackling cheerily in the fireplace burned cold, its flames copper-green. And in the middle of it, half-shrouded by the fire, was Xaphan’s device. A part of her knew what it was and where she would find it before she even stepped into the room. The same part that had led her here, taking charge and guiding her –
pushing
her – this way. And that part of her, the angel part, apparently didn’t think to share what it knew with the rest of her.

She crouched down and peered at. It was a flat disc, cut from a metal like brass – not the cold-iron she had seen so much of already in hell. But the disc had been sliced again and again into pieces, into rings and sections of rings, all spinning within one another on their own axes. Faster and faster they spun, around and above and beneath each other –
through
each other, sometimes, and it seemed impossible that this could be it. That this could be the thing she had been sent to find. That something so small could have led to all of
that
.

She stretched her fingers towards it, and the flames backed away from her. Such a small thing. She could pull it apart with her fingers, burn it to ash, crush it beneath her heel. It didn’t matter how she did it. All that mattered was that it was done.

The metal was cold to the touch, of course. What wasn’t, in hell? But as her fingers brushed it, she saw in her mind’s eye a flash of red, and she understood too late that she had made a mistake. Too late, she realised that this, the tricky little corridor, it was all the same thing. It was all a trap. And as the pain of every soul lured into hell against their better judgement and against their will washed over her, she threw back her head and screamed.