Blood and Feathers (39 page)

“How should I know?”

“Al?” Mallory’s voice hardened. A’albiel was being evasive, and he wasn’t in the mood for it. “I’ll ask you again. And this is the last time I’ll ask nicely. Where... did... Michael... take... Alice?” He scratched his temple with the barrel of one of the Colts, and A’albiel raised an eyebrow at him.

“Are you trying to threaten me?”

“Why? Is it working?”

“Not exactly. But I understand your concern. He won’t harm her, you know.”

“Gosh, that’s reassuring. You’ll forgive me if I take that with a pinch of the proverbial, won’t you?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

It was difficult for Mallory to miss the look Al was giving him. He tended to forget that most Descendeds had enough trouble getting their heads around any language that wasn’t Enochian, let alone sarcasm. Still, seeing a Descended completely and totally flummoxed was worth the effort. Even if he did like this one. He sighed, and checked the field behind them.

Unsurprisingly, the arrival of first the Archangels and then Alice had cleared the ground. Mortars still broke overhead and the rock ran redder than ever, but the Fallen were starting to thin. Some had fled the Archangels, some had been cut down. Some had surrendered. Mallory didn’t think it would take long before they wished they hadn’t. If he was less cynical, he might have believed they had won. But with the gates of hell broken, the Fallen fleeing and – as Gwyn had so succinctly pointed out – none of the Twelve on the field, it felt far less like victory than it did defeat.

“Mallory?”

“Hmm?” He started slightly. He had completely forgotten that A’albiel was still beside him. In an attempt to recover his dignity, he turned his twitch into a casual roll of his shoulders.

“May I ask you something? I don’t wish to appear... indelicate?”

“You see, you open a question with that and I’m already picturing how many different ways this conversation could go bad.”

“Does that mean...?”

“Ask away.”

“You haven’t been with Gwyn long, have you?”

“Relatively speaking, no.” Mallory glanced up at Gwyn, who had regained his composure enough to corner a small group of Fallen. Blood-soaked and bone-tired, by the look of them, they huddled into the rock as he dispatched them, and Mallory found himself reaching for his flask. His pocket was empty, and he silently cursed Vin. “I was assigned to him after Nathanael was killed.” He fidgeted with his guns. It was a subject which still made him uncomfortable. “Meresin did it, on the Hill.”

“The Hill? But that was less than a year ago. I’m surprised you could be re-assigned to another so soon. Usually, these things take time. Particularly when Gabriel’s involved.” Al shook his head, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“He as much of an arsehole as the rest of his choir?”

“I couldn’t possibly say. It isn’t my place. But I thought you and Nathanael...?”

“We got along. He understood me, which is a sight more than I can say for Gwyn. If I didn’t know how much Gabriel hated me, I’d think Gwyn volunteered for the job just to piss me off.”

“Maybe he did. But Mallory, there’s something which troubles me, and while I don’t wish to speak out of turn...”

“Would you just spit it out, already? What is it with you lot? Gabriel’s boys are all psychopaths, and Michael’s choir are all worried about hurting someone’s feelings?”

“Hardly.” Al drew himself upright, which made him several inches taller. Mallory hadn’t realised he’d been slouching. He fought the urge to stand on tiptoe. Al continued: “It’s just... well, there’s something that doesn’t quite sit right.”

“Again: spit it out?”

“I was at the Hill, Mallory. Nathanael was not there.”

“That’s impossible. He died there. It was Meresin. He grabbed him from behind and...”

“No, Mallory.
He was not there.
”

“Maybe you didn’t see him. I heard it was untidy. To say the least.”

“You were absent?”

“Long story.”

“So you did not see it yourself?”

“You think I’d be this relaxed about it if I had?” His hand was moving back to his inside pocket again. The next time he saw Vin, he was going to kick him till he bled. Even if he fixed him afterwards, the point remained.

“Believe me, Mallory. I would have known if Nathanael had been with us on the Hill. I would have welcomed it, and perhaps things would have turned out differently. But he did not fight. He was not there.”

“I don’t get it. Why would he tell me that Nat died... that he died with honour? How could...?”

“Who? Who told you?”

“Who do you think? Gwyn, of course....
Oh
.”

G
WYN DID NOT
understand. As he cut his way through the backs of fleeing Fallen – his sword a blur of flashing light and his wings blazing blue – he found himself wondering where it had begun to unravel.

Like all the best plans, at its heart it had been an overwhelmingly simple idea: to be the angel who led the charge on hell.

Overwhelmingly simple; overwhelmingly, completely and utterly impossible.

Unless, of course, you were in the right place at the right time. Or could arrange to be.

Everyone remembered Seket. The Traveler who Fell, who got nothing more than she deserved.

But not everyone had remembered her daughter.

And not
everyone
had chanced to overhear a conversation between Seket and Michael – of all the angels,
Michael
– which had turned out to be very interesting indeed.

At the time, of course, what Gwyn had heard had little relevance. He was just another soldier. But he was a solider with ambition, and he knew that all information is useful in the right circumstances. So he filed it away and returned to his duties.

It was years before he had reason to think about Seket again, years in which he had worked hard and served well and advanced further than he had ever imagined possible. Gabriel himself had shown an interest in him; had suggested that, in time, there might be a place for him amongst the higher ranks.

In time.

Gwyn did not care for ‘in time.’

And so he had listened at doors and in stairways. He made it his business to hear everything that was said or whispered, to know everything that was left unsaid... to understand the silences between the words, the quietness underneath them.

Then the hellmouths had opened, and the war had escalated beyond all imagining.

As with so much else, it had been chance that led him to hear about Nathanael’s assignment. It was political, of course. These things always were. All half-borns were assigned an Earthbound as their mentor, and the Earthbound in turn answered to a Descended, always from another choir. That was how it worked. Seket being – having been – one of Raphael’s, he had insisted that Mallory be her daughter’s mentor. This had caused no little consternation amongst Gabriel’s choir. After all, angels’ memories are long, and no-one had quite forgotten how Mallory had lost Rimmon to the Fallen. The thought of another loss, under their watch, was too much to bear. Nathanael vouched for Mallory; persuaded Gabriel that he could be trusted, that he would be the right choice, and at last it was arranged.

Except that Gwyn had arrangements of his own.

I
T HAD NOT
been hard to draw Nathanael away from the host on the Hill before the enemy had even broken ranks. Nathanael was a good solider, a loyal soldier. It only took the mention of Gabriel’s name...

The battle was bloody and no-one thought twice when they saw Gwyn, stained with the stuff. No-one thought to question whose blood it might be, and when they found Nathanael’s broken body, it only took a whisper to confirm what they feared: that the Fallen had finally bested one of their own. In the confusion, few had even noticed his absence, and Gwyn felt satisfied. Proud, even.

But someone
had
noticed: A’albiel.

W
ITH EACH SUCCESS
, Gwyn’s confidence grew. He had placed himself in the perfect position. He followed Alice’s progress, he monitored Mallory, Vhnori, even A’albiel. Anyone who might influence her. He dragged the spy Abbadona back out of hell by his heels, screaming, and offered him a deal he did not have the power to keep – confident in the knowledge that Gabriel, once all this was done, would reward him. With a well-placed word, he had even persuaded Gabriel that the time was right to attack, and now it was all coming down around his ears.

He had forgotten to watch the girl. Not Alice – the
other one
. Florence. It had never occurred to him, not once, that she would side with the Fallen. He could see why they found her so attractive, naturally, but even so. When he had realised, he had set about ensuring the blame fell squarely where it deserved to. On Vhnori.

Everything was unravelling. How could Gwyn have known that Xaphan would catch both Alice and Abbadona? And how could Gwyn have known that she would turn on him... him, of all the possible choices? Not Michael, not Mallory, but
him?
How could he have known that there was a bigger plan than his at work: greater than a single angel’s plan for advancement and more powerful than his own ambition.

He raised his sword, and one of the Fallen dropped to his knees with white fire pouring from his mouth.

Victory was all that mattered now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Pennies from Heaven, Dropping Like Rain

A
LICE DROPPED HER
head into her hands with a sigh. “What
is
it with this lot?” she asked no-one in particular.

She had been waiting – not long, admittedly, but long enough – to see if Michael came back. She sat in Balberith’s study, listening to the faint explosions from above, staring blankly at the spines of the ledgers. Once or twice she had even walked over to the shelves to run her fingers along the leather, watching the sparks that jumped from her nails.

It would only take a moment to find it.

A moment to see everything she already knew to be true, laid out on paper in front of her.

She stared the books down, and she turned her back on them.

She wasn’t exactly sure what she had expected from Michael. Perhaps she had expected him to be like Mallory, only, somehow,
more so
. Clearly, she couldn’t have got that more wrong. And while the simple fact that Michael had been a disappointment didn’t bother her as much as it could have, there was something else...

What if she was wrong about her mother?

All her life, Alice had carried memories of her mother; bone-deep, stone-solid memories. They were all she had of her. And although the things Mallory had told her had made her faith in them waver slightly, they still held up. Or at least, they had until now.

But what if she was wrong. What if everything she had believed in, everything she remembered, was a lie?

T
HE DOOR CREAKED
, and Alice whipped round to look at it – half in hope, half in fear. But angels didn’t tend to hide in hell’s half-open doorways, and there was no sign of anyone. Still, had the door really been
that
far open? She stared at it, but it didn’t move. There was something odd, though, something about the floor, about the way it caught the light. It was shining. Ice.

Alice was across the room and throwing open the door in a heartbeat, looking out and down the corridor. It was empty, stretching away out of sight. Shadows dripped down the walls, pooling on the floor. Hell was collapsing under the force of the angels and she wondered idly whether this was how people felt as their ships sank, as their cars spun and left the road, as their planes crashed: the pressure of slow, aching inevitability. The flat black space left when all hope has gone.

Her foot slid out from beneath her, throwing her into the wall, and she realised there was ice out here, too – and not everywhere, but snaking its way along the corridor. A pathway. There was no way of telling where it went, but what did she have to lose?